


Snips and Thangs

by MarcoFro5



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 28,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28615803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcoFro5/pseuds/MarcoFro5
Summary: A collection of snips from my time in the Cauldron Cup and other snips over the years.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	1. Trickster vs Hemorrhagia

Heather’s boots tapped against the white tiling of the supermarket as she made her way through the aisles, a green basket in one hand and plastic bags of new clothes in the other. The place was a little too uppity for her tastes, with 100% organic or gluten-free stickers getting in the way as she searched for the price tags. She grabbed a jar of pasta sauce and nearly gasped at the cost. She knew things were scarce in Brockton Bay but that was just ridiculous. She put it back on the shelf and moved on.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it. She and the Teeth had done a raid the night before, taking in a lot more cash than the scraps they were used to getting in New York and Boston. She decided she would treat herself to a trip downtown, shopping for some outfits to better deal with the summer heat and getting some food for the team. 

They had all been living off of fast food and candy since the move and could use a home-cooked meal for once. Heather tossed a discounted box of noodles in her basket, hoping her teammates wouldn’t give her too much grief when she got back and started cooking. They had jokingly started calling her the “Team Mom” and she had to not-so-jokingly beat them down when they did.

Heather loved the knuckleheads, but she was far from maternal. Growing up with five brothers and a drunk of a dad had made her a brawler, not a caretaker. She ran her hand through her auburn hair, her fingers getting ensnared by the knots before she yanked them free. She added three packages of the cheapest ground beef she could find and made her way to the produce section. Neat pyramids of fruits and vegetables created a mixed aroma that made Heather’s nose twitch. If she closed her eyes and ignored the air conditioning and white lights, it almost smelled like she was back on the farm she grew up on.

Things were good now, she told herself. She’d prefer to settle in one spot instead of constantly going from city to city, but things were good. Heather found herself humming along to whatever stupid pop song was playing overhead as she grabbed a tomato. She turned it over in her hand, her thumb rubbing at a soft spot where it was bruised. Then suddenly it wasn’t, the smooth texture replaced by something waxy and dimpled instead. 

An orange?

“Name’s Trickster. Welcome to Brockton,” a voice behind her called out. 

She turned and saw the culprit. He was tall, with a top hat that only exaggerated the fact and a jacket that clung to his body as if it was made just for him. It probably was, he seemed like the pretty boy type. A red mask covered his face, but his eyes stared her down from where he stood on the other side of the department near a collection of various fruits. He lifted one hand to his mouth and exhaled smoke when he brought it back down. In his other hand was the tomato as he tossed it in the air before catching it.

“Or at least what’s left of it.”

Trickster probably believed he looked really cool, but Heather could tell it was the sort of thing he likely practiced in the mirror or on small-timers. Heather was no small-timer.

“I’m guessing you’re one of the assholes that has everyone scared shitless?” She had heard the stories of villains taking over the city from the news, the national debates on evacuation making headlines.

He bowed, tipping the brim of his hat. Heather could feel her blood boil as he did so, the hot liquid underneath her skin tingling her arms as her power crackled within her. 

“Yes. One of them, at least. There will be less in the coming days,” his voice came out annoyingly confident as he stood back up. “Good news for you, better news for me.”

“So what are you, the fruit police? Is no one allowed to get groceries while you’re around?”

Trickster laughed, the noise coming out hallow and muffled beneath his mask.

“Not without a tax. If you want to shop here, if you want to shop anywhere here,” he spread his arms out wide as if the world was his domain. “Then you will have to pay a little extra as patronage.”

Heather heard similar words from the whiny clerks at the other stores. They were lucky she even bothered paying for the stuff. 

“Fuck off,” she spat.

“You’re a new face so I understand you not knowing. But the not so proverbial buck stops here. Pay for what you owe or I’ll have to make you.”

Hemorrhagia grinned, letting the bags of tank tops and capris slide off her fingers onto the floor. He wanted to fight? Fine by her. She grabbed her forearm with her now free hand and dug her nails in. She raked them down her arm, leaving a trail of crimson in their wake. She could feel her power tug and pull at the blood that left her body, hardening and shaping it.

“Make me then.”

She threw the orange at him as he arrogantly took another drag of his cigarette. Then she charged him, her arm starting to scab over where it was clawed. She held a crude, jagged knife made of her own blood from her power. If there was one thing her daddy taught her, it was that it just took one good hit to end a fight. 

She was thrown off when he puffed out a cloud of smoke and stepped forward, and even more confused when she was teleported forward a few feet. Hemorrhagia had to stop herself from smacking into the wall as her momentum continued to carry her forward. She felt something hit her back and saw the orange roll between her feet. Turning around, she was greeted with the thick smell of tobacco. They had swapped places, with Trickster where she once stood. He tossed the tomato in the air again before placing it beside the others in the pile.

She understood how he got his name now. She clawed at more skin as she worked out a plan of action when he bent down and started to rifle through the shopping bags.

“Seems like some pricey stuff. I’m sure all of this should cover your debt.” Trickster reached in and grabbed a small white top, looking at it, then her, and then back at it. “Really? This can’t be meant for you right?”

She chucked the knife at him, aiming for his hat. Before she could see it land, she spun around. Hemorrhagia lowered her hand and took a deep breath, the pulsing blood in her veins and her heartbeat keeping her focused. Then she was swapped, teleported back with the bags and Trickster now crouched with his back away from her. The knife was flying toward her but her hand was ready to receive it. She managed to catch it, the sharp hilt cutting her hand as she did.

She would’ve used the oozing blood from the cut to add to the size of the blade but there wasn’t much time. She flung it as hard as she could at his head, trying to make sure it got there before he could spin around. He didn’t. Instead, Trickster did a backbend, his hands supporting him as he made an arch out of his body. His hat fell to the floor, letting loose way more hair than Hemorrhagia had expected. With wide and piercing eyes, he almost looked like an owl as he searched the area.

The dagger became a cluster of bananas, harmlessly hitting him in the chest. It would’ve pissed Hemorrhagia off if she wasn’t already sprinting at him. She smirked when she saw his eyes frantically look around only for them to tightly shut as he braced for the impact, bringing one arm up to shield his face 

Hemorrhagia hauled her foot back and kicked, her boot ducking under his arm and making clean contact with Trickster’s face. His mask cracked from the impact, shards of red going everywhere. She may have broken his nose judging by the way it looked. His body crumpled and there was a groan, a much more human sound than the prose he kept spouting earlier. She tried to think of a witty comment and settled for an over the top curtsey instead.

Heather gave him another kick in his side and walked back to her stuff, picking up the bags and hitching them onto her scab-covered hand. She grabbed the bruised tomato, rubbing the soft spot before tossing it, the noodles, and the meat into one of her bags. A wide smile covered her face as she walked past the registers and out the door. She was going to have a great story at dinner tonight.


	2. OC's at an Endbringer Fight

The literal light at the end of the tunnel was fading as the rapid narrowing of the street outpaced him. Spikes behind him pierce into the stone walls and street.

Ethan felt his power tingle at his fingertips as a blade of energy took shape. He could see the bright orange of it from the corner of his eye before shutting them as a window shattered in front of him, the panes holding the glass busting at the seams from the compression. 

Heat seared into Ethan’s hand as the weapon finished forming. It was kite-shaped and sleek, with one point longer than the other. Holding onto it always reminded him of when he touched a stove burner as a kid and that instinct to pull away still prevailed after years of being a cape. He held it tight.

His eyes roved over the space between him and his destination, the spikes sounding closer and closer. How much longer did he have until the street closed up and he was crushed? A door exploded in front of him, panels of splintered wood shooting everywhere. Perfect.

He scooped up a long, thick board from the mess as the shiv in his hand began to burn away at the skin. Carefully, he leveled the board and stabbed the makeshift kunai into the center of it. The edge pierced through and practically melted into the wooden plank. Ethan quickly rose the board above his head with both hands right before it kicked into motion, white-hot flame shooting out of the other end like a rocket.

He propelled forward and was now banking on the wood to hold to get him there in time. As the walls closed in, he shut his eyes, praying he wouldn’t be crushed and made a permanent part of this graveyard of a city.

He landed hard, the board breaking apart and sending him skidding down a flight of stairs until he hit a wall. Not a wall, he realized, but a fountain. A quick assessment determined nothing was broken and he stood up. He was in a courtyard, the circular having two levels. In the lower level now a fountain sat in the center and a statue in the water. Like spokes to a wheel, four stairwells connected the fountain area to a walkway above.

Ethan took a heavy sigh and stretched before reaching into the fountain and drinking a few handfuls of water. He surveyed the statue in the fountain as he had his fill and recognized it to be the red helmet cape from earlier. Kamikaze Bay or something. He couldn’t remember the name, but he could remember seeing the guy being shredded to pieces by a wind storm by the monster with three heads.

He turned around the street he came from was now closed up and sealed. Above the rooftops was the tower, looming over the rest of the city and killing everyone within. Fucking Endbringers.

“You friend or foe?”

Ethan whipped around, a weapon shaping in his hand as he searched for the voice. A girl in a blue bodysuit descended the stairs opposite from where he entered. A closer look showed white snowflake decorations start at her hips and trace down her legs while three larger snowflakes adorned her chest. 

“Aren’t we all friends for these things?” 

He smirked, casting his blade to the side before working on another as he made his way to her. They met in front of the fountain, keeping some distance between each other for the time being.

“I guess. You have a team or affiliation? I don’t see a watch on you.” She raised her wrist up and dangled it, the blinking device on it shaking in turn. 

“Destroyed. No team, I’m riding solo, doing some rescue and evac,” he lied. 

She approached him and Ethan got a better look at her mask. It was white and covered her eyes, with icicles falling from her eye sockets so that they covered her cheeks while keeping her mouth free. They looked like tears that had frozen over. Platinum blonde hair spilled out from under a tiara of ice. She extended her hand and he tossed the weapon aside and shook it, her palms cooling his still hot hand.

“Hailraiser. Sorry for the skepticism. Can’t be sure of anything today.” Her blue eyes met his at the exchange.

“Meteoric. You alone?”

She looked at the ground before replying, a sullen expression on her face. 

“Now, yeah. We got separated and lost a few along the way from our group. Had one get a leg stuck in a fucked up bear trap and just lost another to that past compression. It… it’s been a hard day.”

Metoric could only nod in agreeance. The only person other than her that he had found was some cape in a tree costume that was skewered by spikes after walking under an arch. 

“So what were you going to explain those or...” She asked, pointing at the discarded kunai on the ground.

“Sorry. They’re projectiles I make,” he replied. He lifted his hand up and started to form one for her, the bright like tightening and the energy condensing into a diamond. “They’re less about stabbing and more about moving. I lodge them into stuff or people and then they go flying.”

He rolled it around in his hand.

“They dissolve after a while if not used. What about you? Lemme guess. You shoot fireballs?”

She laughed at that and he couldn’t help but smile. It was the kind of laugh that started as a huff out of her nose before escaping from her lips.

“Not quite.” She took a step back and a deep breath in, her chest rising. She exhaled and white frost flew out slowly as she cupped her hands to contain it. They then toiled away as she caught her breath again. “Ice constructs. Can shoot blasts of it if I spit or make shields or projectiles or even this...”

Her hands worked away as she tugged at the smoke until she had a curved blade of ice. 

“Sturdier than it looks,” she said as she shifted its weight between her hands. 

“Pretty cool,” he replied. No laugh from her that time. Hm.

An idea struck him as he looked around the courtyard, checking the roofs until he found one that would fit. It was low enough to work he thought, and if she could make something…

An alarm interrupted his thoughts as her wristwatch blared. 

“Next phase it looks like…” she said, her posture straightening as she looked around.

Phase? Dammit, he really should’ve snagged the watch the tree guy had. Hell, he wish he would’ve snagged anything from the guy. The costume looked expensive and he was sporting some tinker trinkets as well that would’ve done well on the market. They always do. 

The courtyard shifted.The sound of stone against stone drowned Hailraiser out as she tried to warn him. 

The two stairwells in front of them began to rise as the gargoyle centerpiece between them shook, each long strip of a step pulling apart from the other but not crumbling. The chunk of stone headed by the gargoyle formed into a core and grew higher until it was a tower of its own. Each strip of stairs rose with it and practically flapped like wings made of ribs. A crude bird shape loomed in front of the both of them although it was still rooted into the ground. 

Meteoric grabbed Hailraiser’s hand and booked it for the rooftop he noticed earlier.

“I’ve got a plan but you have to trust me alright?” he asked. She had dropped the blade and seemed a bit flat-footed, with him having to yank her along before she started to keep pace.

“Y-yeah. What’s your plan?”

“Gonna go up and over.” He followed his statement with a nod towards the low roof of a shop they were headed towards. “Can you make a large ball or something? Think watermelon sized.”

“I’ll try, cover me.” And with that she pulled her hand out of mine and brought it to her mouth. Meteoric spared a look back at the stone angel and saw it rear its “wings” back. Not great. They hurried up the stairs when the angel made its move, sending the wings forward and chunks of stone from flying towards them. He already had kunai in both hands and ready.

When they reached the top of the stairs he stopped and did a 180. Focus. He threw one blade forward and immediately started working on the next. An arrow of stone was knocked off course, another chunk impaled and sent careening into the statue in the fountain once the propulsion started. Couldn’t duck, couldn’t dodge. Not with Hailraiser behind him working on his way out. 

Another pieces clipped him in the shoulder, not enough to hurt but enough to knock off his aim on a block of stone destined to hit his head. A ball of ice whizzed past his ear to destroy it and it looked like they had survived the wave.

“I thought I told you to cover me!” She yelled, still hard to be heard over the crushing noise around them.

“And I thought I told you a watermelon?” He gestured towards the head-sized ball she held in her hands. “Do they not have fruit where you’re from? Whatever, it’s fine. We don’t have time anyway.”

He looked back at the angel as it reared its wings back again. He grabbed her gloved hands and positioned them onto the ball of cold ice, putting one in the back and one on the front. He put his left hand on open space and left enough room for his right hand on the other. Even distribution.

“Don’t let go no matter what okay? Even if it burns.”

She nodded as he lodged one of his blades into the underside of the ice ball and grabbed on. He rose the ball into the sky and angled it to shoot over the building. Out of this hellhole. It sputtered into life and began to lift them off the ground. As they rocketed away, he saw more of the ruined landscape.

Buildings were levelled, streets and roads swallowed up entirely. In the sky, capes retreated. Or tried to, many being blasted to bits by the masked Endbringer. Then there were the ones still going out to help. To search and rescue despite it all. The actual heroes. Then Meteoric could feel the descent.

No. No, no, no.

They were falling now, the trajectory changing. They weren’t going to make it. Too much weight on the end. What a waste he thought, dying over this. Dying over helping some girl. He was admittedly scum, a scoundrel, someone who used Endbringer attacks to raid and pillage the aftermath. Everyone was always too focused on protecting the city that they rarely noticed if a tinker gun went missing or a shop got robbed. Cruel karma that now it was the city protecting itself and killing him.

No. He wasn’t going to let karma win. He took a hand off the orb and held on with his left alone. He formed a blade in his free palm and pressed it against Hailraiser’s back. Only one of us can make it. She had to be thinking it too. He leaned until his lips were inches from her ear, his voice hopefully heard.

“Sorry.”

He stabbed her. Sliding the blade past her costume and into her skin. Meteoric shifted his hand so that it was on top of hers. He squeezed hard, reinforcing that she hold on before letting go and falling. The rocket in her back took her up and away as he fell.

She looked like a comet, he thought, as she arced over the building and out of sight. He smiled before his body landed on the hard cobblestone below.


	3. Armsmaster vs. Stan Vickery

The door chimed as he opened it and crossed the threshold of the restaurant, the bell attached to the top announcing his arrival. His eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, a stark contrast to the cloudless sky outside and the fluorescent lights he was accustomed to at the office. 

A collection of ceiling fans whirred above him, spreading the aroma of tomatoes and garlic. It would’ve made him hungry if he hadn’t ate before he came. The decorations of the small restaurant were simple enough with faded brick walls adorned with picture frames and baskets of spices as centerpieces of the few tables and booths. A quick look at the small blackboard with the day’s listed specials confirmed he was in the right place. Bella’s Pizzeria, the name scrawled in a winding cursive at the top of the board. 

A two-star rating on yelp and a menu that required a third-party website just to view had made the place relatively empty. At first glance, the only people within were an elderly couple sharing a pie and a young hostess or waitress who was excitedly coming his way after hearing the ringing of a new customer walk through the door.

She was young, with black hair flowing to her shoulders and rectangular glasses resting on her nose. Her eager expression suggested she wasn’t working for whatever meager amount of money the job produced and instead she was probably part of the family that ran the joint. Hell, she might even be the namesake Bella for all he knew. Regardless, she wasn’t the person he was looking for today.

“Hi! My name is Maria and I’ll be your server this evening. Would you like to sit in a booth or a table today?”

His eyes roved the restaurant, checking the corners of the room with scrutiny as he searched for his destination. She probably thought he was neurotic, as if he was seriously trying to choose between the near identical booths that lined the left wall. It was only when he did a near 180 that he found what he came for.

Tucked in a booth just to the left of the entrance sat a man in costume, alone and quietly eating a bowl of what looked to be spaghetti. His normally dark blue armor looked nearly black thanks to the poor lighting, but the visor that covered half of his face was a dead giveaway of who he was. 

“Armsmaster! Fancy seeing you,” he faced the sitting hero before craning his neck back at Maria and giving her one of his trademark smiles. “I’ll just sit with him if that’s okay.”

“Uhm actually…” she started.

He didn’t wait for her response as he took the few steps to Armsmaster’s booth, sliding into the other side of the booth and sinking in the cushion. The hero’s eyes and nose were concealed, but he could practically feel the glare he was being given. He wondered what he looked like through the lenses of that visor. Was his body language being read? His face ran through systems? His face replaced by ones and zeros?

“Stan Vickery. The worst man in Brockton Bay, save for a few monsters,” his words punctuated by a groan.

Stan felt a pang of both flattery and frustration at the title. On one hand, it was nice to know he still carried a reputation with one of the top members of the Protectorate even years after being promoted from a reporter to a producer at his network. On the other, it reaffirmed that Armsmaster likely wasn’t interested in playing ball and engaging in the quid pro quo that would help the both of them greatly.

“Uhm sir-”

“Stan’s fine Maria.” The clarification didn’t help ease her nerves as she shifted from foot to fit, as if she was trying to find her posture to take a firm stance and be polite while doing so.

“Okay, anyway I’m not supposed to allow other guests to sit with or take photos with Mr. Armsmaster.”

“It’s fine Maria,” Armsmaster decided. “Mr. Vickery is like a disease. You send him away and he only comes back nastier and stronger. Best to just let him run his course and be done with it.”

Stan laughed, the noise leaving his throat like it was forced to. “I like that. I’ll have to use that comparison in one of my segments. Maybe the one I’m doing on your capture of Lung?”

His helmet didn’t give much away, but Stan could see his face harden. It had been less than a week since Armsmaster had caught the elusive ABB boss, the capture reaching the front page of the local paper. Stan’s station had already covered it, but he felt there was still a little meat left on the bones. He turned his attention back to the waitress, ignoring the scowl of the man across for him, and asking her for a box of tiramisu to-go and a spme cola. He doubted he would be here long enough to enjoy it. After she left, he put both elbows on the table and leaned in.

“Congratulations by the way. Whole teams have tried taking him on only for him to slip away, yet you managed to do it by yourself. Alone.”

“Yes. Believe it or not but I am a very capable hero Vickery,” Armsmaster’s words were measured and relaxed as he twisted his fork in his bowl, spaghetti strands wrapping around it.

“Capable indeed. Capable enough that I heard you had Lung so close to death’s door that it took the fine folks at PHQ some time just to get him stable.”

The scowl became hostile as Armsmaster pointed the spaghetti-covered fork in his direction like it was a weapon, bits of sauce flinging onto Stan’s polo. That was going to be a bitch to get out. 

“Where did you hear these lies Vickery?”

“A friend of a friend. And they might be lying. Only you and a few others know for sure but I did some digging. You’re already a pain to find, but at least you patrol. However for some reason no one has seen you in the past two days. It’s like you’ve gone off the grid. Maybe you were out galavanting after the big arrest.” 

Maria arrived with the soda and a little styrofoam box, he flashed her a smile and thanked her when she provided him a straw before she left again. 

“Except you don’t seem like the celebratory type.”

Armsmaster scoffed. “And what type of person do you think I am Vickery?” 

He was deflecting, getting the topic off of whatever the hell was going on with Lung’s capture. Stan had had to cash in a favor from one of the nurses at PHQ and there was no guarantee that it was reliable considering the nurse’s tendency to exaggerate in the past. His skepticism rose when she described how Lung was lacking in “equipment” as well. 

“To be honest? I think you’re one of the good ones. Someone who works tirelessly at his job and doesn’t stop when his shift ends. We’re a lot alike in that regard,” Armsmaster opened his mouth to disagree but Stan continued, wanting to get to the point. “We both fight for good values, you and I. You fight for justice, I fight for truth. Lung’s a monster and if you had to go to those measures then so be it, I just want to know if that’s what happened.”

“You have no right to know.”

Stan hated that line of thinking. Everyone had a business to know what was going on behind the scenes. Cape culture had flipped everything he learned in six years of university upside-down. He was fine with the secret identities, the things that kept capes safe. But he wasn’t fine with the lack of transparency. Underneath the masks and costumes were real people, flawed people, people like him and the civilians they protected. There wasn’t a way to get a hold of the people behind the masks, it took him eight calls and exchanged favors just to find a way to meet up with the costume in a seedy hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

“I don’t,” Stan lied. “But I don’t need your confirmations to run this story. I’ve got a 20-minute slot to fill tomorrow night. Sure it’s after eleven and sure it will be running with less validity than I’d like, but I’ve seen stuff run with less. Worse stuff than taking a known villain down to the point that you did.”

Silence hung in the air for a few seconds as Stan stabbed the lid of his drink with his straw and took a sip, the carbonation bathing over his tongue and fizzing. It was a crude proposal and a farce, meant to rattle him a bit. Stan didn’t know much about the world of capes, but he knew that they had social politics in place just like anywhere else. 

Armsmaster’s laughter echoed through the quiet restaurant.

“Is that it? Are you trying to intimidate me with bad publicity? I’ve dealt with much worse than a late-night hit job. I don’t care what anyone thinks so long as monsters like Lung stay locked up. So run it, do whatever you want.” 

Armsmaster stood up, taking the final bite of his garlic bread and began wiping the crumbs off his bearded chin with a napkin. Without warning there was a heavy boom and then the building shook, one of the photos on the wall falling onto a table. Stan slumped into one side of the booth. It felt like half of the bay exploded. Armsmaster didn’t flinch and made his way to the door. He turned to Maria, who had both palms on a table for support before making his exit.

“Thank Rosa for the meal for me. I have a city to save.”


	4. Some Kaze

Kimiko could run no longer.

Every muscle ached, her body refusing to carry her any further than the tree she leaned on. Each attempt to catch her breath was met with a high-pitched wheeze, her lungs pushed to their limit. 

How far had she ran? 10 miles? 20? She wasn’t sure. All she was knew was that it wasn’t far enough. Her chest rose and fell with each breath as she slumped to the ground. She was so tired. Weeks spent running across the ruins of her country had finally caught up to her and her body refused to budge. 

The wind roared around her, drowning out the steady fall of rain as the sky mourned. Mourning for her, she thought. For all of those lost and those damned to lose even more. She sat there like that for a few seconds, knowing that each second put her closer to death’s door. It didn’t matter anymore, Kimiko figured. She was dead the moment she stopped running.

A sound like a thousand swords being drawn at once tore through the forest. When the echoes quieted, a tree fell, creaking and snapping before hitting the ground. 

A woman stood in its place. Her wet hair was tied in a loose ponytail behind her head and her clothing was shredded. She wore a black jumpsuit, with uneven holes and tears exposing the skin underneath. She did not move an inch, the katana in her hand firmly grasped.

“Please,” Kimiko begged, her voice straining. Cold air ravaged her throat with each breath. The woman waited. She had so much to say and no power left to say it. She thought about her friends and her family. The thousands lost and the thousands more to follow. She looked into the woman’s eyes and saw nothing left to greet her.

No sadness, no anger, no disgust, no sick pleasure. There was nothing. 

“Just-” 

In a moment the woman vanished and the sound of screeching metal wailed once more. Kimiko felt her skin slice open, small cuts at her fingers and neck feeling as painful as the wide gashes across her chest and thighs. She was split from her shoulder to her waist, a crude sash turning crimson as blood poured out of her. 

Breathing got even harder, until it got a lot easier. Each breath became shorter and shorter as she quickly bled out from all over her what was left of her body.

Kimiko rested, the rain washing her blood away.


	5. Some String Theory

A large bell separated Lydia from her pursuer at the top of the cathedral. She leaned around it to speak with the man, smiling as he tried to catch his breath.

“Tired?” she asked.

“Fuck you,” he huffed out before pulling his gun on her, slowly shuffling around the obstacle between them.

The night sky shined brighter than the Cardiff skyline below them, sounds of wind swallowed up the noise of cars and people at the streets. 

Lydia checked her watch. There was still some time to kill. She chuckled at her own joke before sitting down on the ledge, her long braid flowing in the wind behind her. She leaned back, and relished that feeling of weightlessness as gravity took hold before reeling herself back upright. 

“You must be in pretty good shape. I figured it’d take someone at least 15 minutes to make it up alllll of those stairs,” she said as he reached her, gun locked onto her head and following as she rocked. “Do you do Zumba or?”

“Enough, String. It’s over.”

“It’s never over, Noah,” she said. “You know that. If you stop me today, which you won’t, then you’ll just be tasked with someone else. Someone worse even.”

“They don’t come worse than you.”

She grinned at the compliment and nudged her glasses back up her nose. 

“A gentleman until the end. Promise me one thing though.”

“Never.”

“Promise me that if you do manage to put a bullet in my head or capture me tonight that you’ll quit the agency. They’re going to use you, and use you, until there’s nothing left. We’re just tools to them. Nothing more. Put that big brain of yours to good use and get out.”

There was brief silence before he responded and String Theory took pride in the fact that he had at least considered it.

“I can’t. I won’t. Interpol needs guys like me to stop monsters like you.”

“They make monsters like me!”

When Noah didn’t respond, she sighed and looked at her watch once more. They had been friends one, occasional lovers even. Two years of hard jobs and harder feelings together. She had seen so much of the world in her time as an agent and there was so much she wished she never had to see. Painful memories filled her mind as she leaned back on the edge. Not the way she wanted the night to go.

She hopped up and Noah fired, the bullet tearing clean through her coat pocket, barely missing her body. Missing was the wrong word. Noah doesn’t miss. 

“Fair,” String Theory said, putting her hands in the air and craning her neck behind her to see bits of machinery and cloth falling to the ground below. “Although you know I’m not the type to carry *actual* weapons, so still kind of a dick move.”

“People change,” Noah said, reaching for a pair of handcuffs from behind his back. She placed both hands out for him as he cuffed her.

“Do you know why I chose this building of all buildings to hide in?” She asked, the cold metal of the cuffs giving her goosebumps on her wrists. She eyed her watch and grinned.

“The architecture?”

“No,” Lydia said, wild eyes staring into his. “The view.”

Through the reflection in Noah’s eyes, she saw the cityscape behind her explode, the noise deafening whatever curses he swore.


	6. Bonesaw vs. Chuckles

The noise the scalpel made when it fell from Riley’s hand rattled the metal in her bones so hard she flinched. She bent down to pick it back up and an oversized clown shoe kicked her.

She rolled her eyes and smacked it away like Mommy used to smack her hand away from the cookie jar. 

“Dummy, don’t be stubborn,” Riley said, re-equipping the scalpel and running the blade through Chuckles’ Achilles’ heel. Or maybe it was an Achilles’ wrist now? 

Riley stood up and paced around the body, watching the dirty carpet turn crimson under him. A chorus of laughter and wheezes filled the grimy hotel room.

Every part of Chuckles jerked and shook and Riley couldn’t help but laugh too as he wiggled on the floor. She had played mix-and-match with his limbs, shoving legs into shoulders and arms into hips. When she made the bleeding stop, she swapped his hands and feet around. Then his fingers and toes. 

It took him a few days to learn how to walk and a few weeks to hold a knife well enough to scar her face. 

Then she did it all over again. He didn’t try to cut her again after that.

But now Chuckles was broken, a twitchy mess of extremities and joints, and Riley wasn’t allowed to play with broken toys anymore. It was one of the many lessons Mister Jack had taught her since she joined her new family. 

She knelt by Chuckles’ head, patting her brand new, squeaky-clean apron down to not get any mess on it. There was going to be a big mess, although she had gotten much better at handling it lately. She had gotten better at a lot actually, now that she thought about. 

Riley had always been a quick learner and was the first in her grade to memorize her times tables, even the pesky twelves. So it was only natural that she be fast at learning things like staunching bleeding, and skin grafts, and trache-whatchamacallits. She still needed to memorize all the mumbo jumbo in the books she took when they visited the high school last week. 

But it was the hands-on learning that was the best! Riley stroked Chuckles’ greasy hair as she remembered all the different bodies she was able to practice on. There were some that stood out for sure, like the hero boy with ice instead of skin and the girl in the cat costume who came back to life stronger each time her heart stopped. Riley was able to get a lot of practice with her.

Riley’s smile faded when her fingers got caught in the clown’s matted hair. All the face paint and red noses in the world couldn’t hide Chuckles’ pained expression as he struggled. Chuckles was icky and smelly but he taught her a lot. He taught her how to do an evil laugh like from the cartoons and how to make a scary face that made people pee their pants. 

But over time Chuckles stopped feeling like a friend and more like a puzzle she needed to solve. His arms and tummy were really, really strong and his legs and head were really, really fast. So like a Rubik’s cube, she shuffled all the bits around and studied him like a doctor did a patient. 

It took some effort, but Riley worked a clown shoe off his right “foot” and chucked it behind her, giggling at the squeaky thud it made when it bonked off the wall. Chuckles laughed and Riley giggled harder. 

“Darn it Chuckles, don’t make this so hard,” Riley managed through fits of laughter.

Riley fit her hand into the clown’s foot, her pinkie finger having a hard time fitting between the space of his thumb and middle finger. A big toe squeezed her hand hard. There wasn’t any super strength behind it and there was no reason there should be. When Riley first jumbled Chuckles, his legs were still fast even though they hung from his shoulders and the arms he had to walk on were still strong. 

But as she continued to shuffle hands for feet and fingers for toes, the part of Chuckles that handled his powers went kablooey. Or at least it had given up. Now different parts of the same leg-arm did different things.

Riley started to pull her hand away from Chuckles’ and she stared at the ugly foot-hand. The big toe on the side and the pinkie finger in the middle of the club both jiggled with super speed and Riley knew the other digits would be too strong to move. 

Whatever rules his power had before were too broken to matter now. Riley was sure that she could fix them with enough practice, her eyes roved over Chuckles and she could see where she could cut and slice to give each limb the right amount of each power. If she had enough time she could probably upgrade his whole body; she would give him more fingers and arms for support so he didn’t tumble and she would move his head so it was in his stomach so his head would be strong and protected.

But there wasn’t enough time to try it all out. Mister Jack said they needed to move on from this city and Chuckles was just too slow. Was that irony? Riley could never remember what counted as ironic and what was just funny. Chuckles wheezed and Riley sighed.

She didn’t want to have to say goodbye and her progress so far reflected it, with poor-effort cuts across his body at arteries that didn’t have any hear in them. Now Chuckles bled out slowly and Jack would be maaaaaad if she didn’t get this done before it was time to go. She got giddy as she figured out a way to speed things up.

“We’ll play a game! Just like the one we played at Happy World when we found those teenagers smooching behind the teacups, remember?” 

Chuckles let out a high pitched noise and frowned.

“Oh come on, you loved that game and taught me the rules. We should play it one more time,” Riley explained, perking up at the idea. She began fishing through the pockets of her apron, tossing tools aside as she searched for what she needed. “You would get a running start and then use your arm to clothesline them at their neck, making their heads pop off or explode. It was so much fun! Don’t you remember the look on the boy’s face when his girlfriend’s head rolled to his feet?”

Riley did her best impersonation, putting both hands to her face like she was screaming. She nudged Chuckles as she laughed. Finally, she found what she needed, lifting it up with triumph. Jack had urged her to broaden her horizons and try new things and this was the perfect time to do that.

She grabbed both handles of the cutting tool and stood up. Between the rubber handles was a sharp and curved blade that was so new the price sticker was still on it. She held it above her head and guesstimated its width with the width of Chuckles’ fat neck. 

“I wonder if you’ll make a funny face too.”

She brought the blade down as fast and as hard as she could. She missed and Chuckles screamed as the crescent buried itself into his clavicle. Riley was still just a little girl and it took a little effort to yank the blade back out of Chuckles. She leaned in close to see the damage, getting a strong whiff of blood and grimy meat.

“You big weenie! It barely chipped the bone. I know you’re a clown but you don’t have to be such a drama queen!”

Riley lifted it back up and brought it back down, fixing her aim. 

Chuckles didn’t scream this time, instead a gurgling left his mouth as blood spilled out of his lips. Not as much blood as what was coming out of his throat though, Riley thought. The blade was halfway deep and this time she took it out slowly, watching the blood drip off.

She lifted it up and did it again. And again. And again. And again. The gurgling didn’t stop but quieted, going from a boil to a simmer as Chuckles tried to breathe. Riley was having a hard time breathing too, the tool was really heavy and playing whack-a-mole with it a bajillion times had worn her out.

There was a knock on the door and she gave a cheery wave and a smile to Chuckle’s bloody, butchered head before skipping over the body and leaving.


	7. Forevermore the OC

Forevermore took a deep breath as she held her mask in her hands. She idly plucked a black feather out, spinning it between her fingers. The back of the van reeked of the beach and death, the pungent scent of salt and sickly-sweet decay flooding her nostrils as she inhaled. The tension and nervousness left her body as she exhaled. She did that a few more times, becoming accustomed to the smell just as she had become accustomed to the squawking and cawwing during the long ride. 

She returned the feather to its proper place in her mask and put it on, the material sticking tightly around her eyes. It covered her no more than a pair of glasses might have except the feathers that adorned it covered her foreheads and a good portion of her cheeks. She wiggled her nose as the soft feathers made contact with softer skin and she was reminded of Miguel’s suggestions to wear a beak as part of the ensemble. She refused of course, not wanting to be associated with plagues and the sick. The sick suffered and she was far from a cure.

Plus, it would have clashed with the aesthetic she tried to portray, her costume inspired by the black and white movies her abuela had let her stay up to watch when she watched her. A little black dress that stopped at her thigh was repurposed with dark feathers and a headband kept a plumage attached to her hair right above her left ear. Fingerless, black and lacy gloves that snaked up to her elbows completed the look.

Mira landed on Forevermore’s knee, talons threatening to rip the opaque pantyhose they perched on. She flapped her wings a few times before cawing, making eye contact with her good eye. Forevermore sighed before smiling. 

“You’re insatiable, you know that?” 

“Caw!’

“If I do it for you then I’ll have to do it for everyone.”

Mira raised her wings, exposing the bare bones of her rib cage in the process. 

“Fine,” Forevermore said before leaning in close to whisper. “But don’t let the others know.” 

Forevermore could feel her power beginning to tingle, nerves and jittery energy causing her hands to fidget before focusing on the tips of her fingers. She stroked Mira on her head, fingers sliding across silky feathers and dark red energy glowing where she touched before spreading. The glow traced down the crow’s wing that was picked clean of its feathers. Mira’s loose eye started to find its way back towards its intended place and feathers started to sprout from bare chest to cover it.

“Caw!” Mira thanked, before flying off to another section of the van.

Sure enough, the others came knocking. Abbott and Costello, the pair of doves she had claimed from a magic shop, landed on her extended arm, Gander eased his way over, resting his head on her knee, and a trio of sparrows she hadn’t yet named fluttered closer to her. All had surely gotten a whiff of her power in use and she obliged them all. 

Luckily for her, the newest recruits seemed too concerned with getting out of this moving box than becoming stronger. At least they were playing nice, Forevermore thought. Her subjects could prove to be unruly when flustered or bothered. And those feelings were most prevalent after she first got her hands on them.

A part of Forevermore felt bad about what she had done, but the other parts knew they were justified. Birds were small-minded and the dozens of seagulls squawking and flying about were a testament to that. She liked to only claim those that had died by natural causes, using her power to revive victims of the cruel food chain or speeding drivers. She eyed Bruto the buzzard as she remembered the state she had found him in.

But times were tough. The Gallery was starting to lose its footing against a PRT department that only seemed to bring in more and more firepower. So she needed to get firepower of her own and the stop at the beach was just the first step. A loaf of bread and antifreeze had given her an army. And now that army would get her what she wanted most.

The cape business was grueling and the successes were short lived. There were no savings, no investments, no rainy-day funds. If you ran into a rainy day you were getting your teeth knocked in or worse. Everyone tended to focus on the “doing” The action, the fights, the winning. But what mattered most was using your spoils of war wisely and parlaying one victory into a habit.

The van stopped and Forevermore began to flex her control a few times, getting used to the feeling of more birds than she was used to. The new ones would have to be on a shorter leash, she thought as her mind began to plot the positioning of each under the effect of her power. She brought Mira close to her, having her perch on her shoulder as she stood up and the doors opened. 

“Jesus Ever, how can you even breathe in this stench?” a boy with a fang-painted bandana asked, putting a hand to his already covered nose.

“Rich, coming from you Ophi,” Forevermore replied.

She gingerly stepped out of the van and into the concrete of the parking lot, the sun beaming down on her. Her flock followed and she made sure to have Bruto ascend right in front of Ophiuchus causing him to half-slither, half-stagger backwards.

While she stretched and limbered up, she had her flock do loose motions in the air, keeping them low enough that a patrolling flier wouldn’t notice from a few miles away. She noticed the look Ophiuchus gave her, his eyes falling on her legs and backside. He wore a costume that wasn’t overly masculine like the goody-goodies on the Wards or Resilience were. A snakeskin choker matched bracelets layered to look like a rattlesnake. She knew he had the same bracers up and down his legs even though she couldn’t see them at the moment. 

Ana had him half-devoured, the red and black snake’s jaw unhinged so that she could engulf his body up to his waist. He was safer that way, with Ana’s hard skin protecting his legs and able to fully cover him in a moment’s notice and carry him away. Forevermore also noticed how balanced the boy and his minion were now compared to a few weeks ago when he first joined. She had enough slack that she could use slither around upright, using him as leverage while giving him a height advantage if needed. 

He would need it today. The others pulled up in the separate car as Ophiuchus took his gaze off her to grab his cutlasses. Forevermore called off the aerial exercises as the group headed to the back entrance. Mira guided her flock under an arch painted with greens and reds spelling out “Westerleigh Park Zoo” and had her birds hide in trees and in enclosures. 

Parlaying wins into more wins, Forevermore thought, as Pachyderm started to transform to take out a guard. She snagged a map out of a brochure booth and smiled at how close the atrium was to her. Ophi gave it a look over and tapped a section with his sword.

“What’s a cassowary?” he asked

Forevermore beamed.

“The jackpot.”


	8. Lung's Advice

Weaver only had a few seconds, yet they lasted for an eternity. Her bugs had plotted out the room Jack and his new Slaughterhouse occupied, her power creating a three-dimensional map of who was where. Or at least it tried to. With over 200 targets, figuring out who was where was difficult. 

Finding Jack wasn’t difficult, his monologue echoing through the doorway Weaver hid behind. She had four bullets, three now that she spent one on a creeping Nice Guy. Five bullets and 200 targets. Despite all of the experiences that led her to this very moment, she was reminded of her first night in costume. 

She had hidden back then just as she did now, guessing where each enemy was located and running through scenarios. Back then it was only Lung and a dozen grunts with baseball bats and rusty pistols. A stark contrast to the Siberian and Gray Boy who would end her in a second if given the chance.

Regardless of the differences, those same feelings presented themselves now. She wasn’t scared. Just worried. Worried that she would make the wrong choice and that by diving from out of cover she would end up doing more harm than good. Honestly, she couldn’t think of a way out of this that wasn’t going to harm herself and the people she cared most about. But she could think of how it could still do more good in the long term. 

If she hadn’t fought Lung that night then she wouldn’t have the chance she does now. She had acted then and she was damn well going to do so now, her power drawing lines for to aim with as she dove out from cover. 

A bullet for Screamer.

Another for Cherish.

She hesitated as her gun lined up with the head of her last target. The Siberian had already leaped towards her and every millisecond spent before squeezing the trigger was costing her. In that moment she remembered the words that had put her on this path. Lung’s grumble that had made her act rang in her head as she fired her last bullet.

“The children, just shoot.”


	9. Lisa Babysits Endbringers

Patience is a virtue, Lisa thought, popping two more pills in her mouth. She chased them down with a swig of water and wiped away the sweat from her face. Lisa couldn’t tell if she was sweating this much from the summer heat or the fact they were all packed together in this line like sardines.

“Drink,” she said, tapping her water bottle against the girl in front of her.

Not even so much as a look her way.

“Sim, drink,” she said again, practically thrusting the bottle in front of her face.

“Sorry,” Sim said, eyes still glued to the family in front of them in line as she took a small sip and started to hand it back. Lisa nudged it back to her.

“Nuh-uh, drink more. It’s 90-something degrees out and I’m not about to piggyback you around all of Wonder World because you had a heat stroke.”

Sim rolled her eyes but obliged. After enough gulps, Lisa took the bottle and did a similar routine with the other two kids under her care.

“Can’t we just go to a show or something?” Sim asked, arranging her white hair into a loose ponytail. “At least it would be air conditioned.”

“You know the rules. Everyone gets their turn on what we do,” Lisa said. “Levi picked the Wild Rapids, and Hemmy picked this.”

The oldest boy shot her a look for using the nickname and Lisa stuck her tongue out at him. 

“Whatever,” Sim said, ponytail completed. Lisa tucked a few missed strands of platinum behind the child’s ear. Not so much of a child anymore, Lisa thought.

“Something’s up. Usually you’d spend the next eternity talking my head off until you got your way, not like it’d work,” 

The young girl was approaching the age where batting eyelashes and pouting lips no longer granted her whatever she wanted.

“Works on Dad,” Sim muttered.

“Yeah, your Dad’s weak like that,” Lisa said with a smile. “That’s why he pays someone strong like me to take care of you brats.”

Levi complained and Lisa tousled his hair and pushed him forward as the line progressed. With the boys occupied, she leaned down until her voice was a whisper in Sim’s ear.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, lay off”

“Ever since we got in line, you’ve been very not fine,” Lisa said, watching as Sim’s eyes traced the tracks of the rollercoaster. “Oh my gosh, you’re scared aren’t you?”

“What! No!”

The rollercoaster roared as it passed by them and Sim jumped, her actions betraying her words. A grin crept over Lisa’s face.

“Well, well, well. Big, bad Sim, scared about ridi-”

Sim put both hands over Lisa’s mouth to stop her.

“Not so loud,” Sim said, her eyes darting to her older brothers to see if they overheard. Both were too busy wreaking havoc to notice. Lisa licked Sim’s hand and the girl recoiled in disgust.

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna blab your secret to the whole world, yeesh,” Lisa said after regaining her composure. “Besides, it’s okay to be scared sometimes.”

“It is?”

“Of course, fear is a very normal and human thing to feel,”

Sim looked at her like she had six heads.

“Just…” Lisa struggled to find the words for a few seconds. “You like tech stuff right?”

“I guess,” Sim replied, eyes downcast.

“You guess?” Lisa said, giving a look of surprise. “I remember you *begging* me to come to your science fair last year.”

Sim gave a rare smile, perking up.

“This is just a loud machine, with lots of moving parts,” Lisa continued. “It starts, it runs its course, and it finishes.”

“What if it goes off the rails and-”

“It won’t.”

“But if it does then-”

“It. Won’t.”

Sim nodded, letting the words bounce around in her head for a while. She fell silent again, her eyes tracing the path the rollercoaster took as it made its rotations. 

A very hot ten minutes later, the wait was over and they found themselves being ushered by some underpaid teenager to get on. The boys were fighting between one another about who got to sit where in the front row, oblivious to Sim behind them.

Sim walked with feigned confidence, head held high as she climbed into a row of seats. She panicked a little trying to figure out the seat belt until Lisa helped her, a satisfying click helping ease the nerves.

‘You sure you’re okay?” Lisa asked as the safety bar dropped down in front of them.

“Yeah,” Sim said, grip hard enough that her nails threatened to tear through the foam on the bar.

The rollercoaster began its climb, the ticking of metal against metal serving as a countdown. Lisa put her hand over one of Sim’s, using her thumb to rub at a pale knuckle. At the peak of the ascent, Lisa gave a reassuring smile as the ticking stopped and the only sound was the wind whipping in the air. Together, they dropped out of the sky, Sim’s screams ringing in her ears.


	10. Glaistig Uaine vs. Contessa

Glaistig Uaine was transported like a lightning bolt, with incredible speed and an impact so hard it left her on one knee. She allowed one gasp before rising up and surveying where she was forcibly teleported. The white of the room was nearly blinding and she could hear the hum of an air conditioning unit. However, it was the sight of the woman just a few meters away that chilled her. 

The Contessa. 

The woman looked uncharacteristically exhausted with sweat soaking her white dress shirt. In one hand she held a hat that looked as if acid had eaten away at it. In the other hand, a gun.

*Edgeless*, she thought, and in an instant she brought forth a shade, a ghost shaped more like an egg than a man stepping into the space between her and the Contessa.

*Gander, the Perverse. Styx, Hardened Will.*

Glaistig Uaine called their names deep into the well within her and in moments they formed.

“Who’s tall, dark, and brooding?” Gander asked. Long bangs hid her face to the point that only her mouth was shown, lip bitten. 

“Cauldron’s champion,” Glaistig Uaine said. “Is she doing anything? Edgeless blocks my vision.”

“Just standing there being creepy as hell.”

“Keep one eye on her.Use your others to search for an exit or a door. This isn’t a fight we win, it’s one we don’t fight.”

“Got it.”

“Styx-”

“Already underway, my queen,” he replied. His hands were to his mouth as he whispered prayers and mantras until they glowed faintly. She gave him a nod.

“No doors. No windows. No secret buttons with trapdoors. Just her, and the dead capes,” Gander said.

“The what?” 

Without moving her head an inch, Gander thumbed in the direction behind them. Glaistig turned and saw that the wall was splattered in so much crimson that it nearly looked like brick. On the ground there were bodies. She recognized Eidolon, the High Priest riddled with bullets on top of a cape in all black. There had to be at least a dozen, their very essences ripped out from them so she could not harvest.

“From a prison to an execution block,” Glaistig Uaine muttered, earning a small laugh from Gander. She banished her, the shade fading away as she called for another. *Remembrandt, the Forged History*

As her new shade appeared she heard Contessa’s gun cock and she immediately cast Remembrandt away and brought Gander back.

“Aw miss me so soon?” Gander cooed.

“I may need you to stay, she tried to attack me when you left.”

“If you want me to be with you when you die you can just say it you know,” she said. “I doubt I can stop her. She’s probably just fucking with you.”

“Doubtful. The Contessa does no such thing.”

“Shame, that,” Gander said, lip bitten once more.

She turned to Styx, whose hands were now bathed in bright purple light. 

“Give it to me now,” Glaistig said. Styx obliged, despite Gander’s laugh, putting his hands on Glaistig Uaine’s neck and transferring the invulnerability to her.

“It will last you only a minute, my queen.”

“Thank you, may we pray I live that long.” She banished him.

“She’s pacing,” Gander advised. 

Glaistig Uaine could hear the shoes against the floor and an odd dance ensued as she kept Edgeless between her and the woman. She cast Edgeless away and Contessa already had the gun trained on her head.

She felt the bullet make contact with the skin between her eyebrows before harmlessly to the ground and Glaistig Uaine huffed a small breath of relief.

She sent Gander away, leaving her with no shades and a ticking clock.

*Grenadine, the Forsaken*. 

The shade was missing his jaw and eyes, bandages covered every part of him that was still left. He was one of the first bounty hunters to chase her and was spiteful after being added to her flock. But her deadline was nearing and she believed him to be her only option.

“Nullify her power,” she commanded. He only nodded, unable to speak. He could sabotage me, Glaistig Uaine thought. Contessa, for her part, did not move or change whatsoever.

This battle was decided, one way or the other. It was decided the moment she was transported into this coffin. Her next move could save her or be the predicted step towards damnation. She felt the invulnerability leave her as she stared down Contessa. She would act. 

“Fin, the Lasting Night!” she yelled. The shade appeared as Contessa fired the bullet. He deflected it then fired, a small bundle of dark energy ripping through the air and tearing cleanly through Contessa’s shoulder.. She fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

A moment of silence passed and was soon broken.

“What the fuck?!” a voice echoed into the room. 

The walls and flooring peeled away to reveal what looked like the interior of a conference room. Carpeting replaced tiles and the harsh white was replaced by a soft blue. The voice came from behind her.

“Seriously? Just one shot, Contessa?” the woman said, leaning into a microphone from behind a glass wall. Matchmaker, Glaistig Uaine realized, the overlapped hearts on her costume unmistakable. She was one of many people behind the glass wall, looking down at the modern arena.

Some were angry, passing dollars to one another while a man behind a computer cited the transactions. Others were sad, particularly a pair of women wearing sweaters with a photo of Contessa weaved into them. All were watching as if the fight of her life had been a spectacle. 

Matchmaker sighed and in an instant she was next to Contessa.

“I invest all this money for a tournament and you can’t even make it past rou-”

The sound of the bullet was followed by a gasp from the crowd. Matchmaker dropped to the ground a sputtering mess, blood gushing from her mouth. Glaistig Uaine approached as Contessa put three more bullets into Matchmaker’s head. Glaistig Uaine grabbed her arm as she started loading more bullets and lifted her off the ground, mindful of the hole in her shoulder. She set Fin to reversing the effects of his deletion power.

The Contessa sighed. How many people had she been made to kill as sport?

“Collect her power so that we may leave.”

Glaistig Uaine eyed the corpse and began to pull the fragment of the whole that granted her power. 

“And them?” Glaistig Uaine asked, nodding towards the crowd as the glass wall protecting them faded. 

Contessa said nothing, instead walking toward the crowd, her limp improving which each step as her wound mended. Glaistig Uaine followed.

No one ran or fled, instead they argued with one another.

“Are you kidding? She has the Gray Boy,” one screamed, his tall hat flailing wildly.

“Actually, that wouldn’t constitute a death given what we know of his power,” a cape with a fox mask snidely corrected. A group of five or six nodded behind her.

“What are they discussing,” Glaistig Uaine asked.

“Which one of us will kill more than the other.”

Delusional, Glaistig Uaine thought. As she rose to where the crowd was, she could see three W’s along the wall under a crude rendition of Cauldron’s insignia.

“They’re members of Cauldron?”

“The worst kind,” Contessa said before firing.


	11. Ashtoria

The door to the bedroom burst open and a fishbowl hit the desk with enough force Victoria thought it would break.

“What is this?” she asked, punctuating the question with a sigh as she closed her laptop. The time to get any work done was apparently over.

“Your new roommate,” Ashley said without an ounce of humor, as if the fish’s name would soon be added to the lease.

“Will he be taking my room?” 

“*She* will be staying in this bowl. No room needed,” Ashley said, gesturing towards the small bowl that rested on top of the stack of notes Vicky printed out. A beta fish made of dark gray scales that flowed into red at the fins swam around a hollowed out skull Victoria prayed was just a decoration at whatever pet store Ashley had visited. Red pebbles lined the bottom of the bowl.

“She’s pretty.”

Ashley smirked and scoffed at the same time, an “of course she is, I picked her out” translated from the haughty huff she gave.

“Does she have a name?” Victoria asked, sticking her finger in the water. She did a lazy figure eight, the fish following the motion.

“Elizabeth.”

“Beth the Betta.”

“No. Elizabeth.”

“Kind of weird for a fish.”

“How so?” Ashley asked, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her left foot.

“Normal, people names for pets is always weird to me. Like a pit bull named Mike or a cat named Mary.”

“Elizabeth is far from normal. Her name is regal, queenly.”

Victoria shrugged, earning another audible huff from Ashley. Victoria noticed a collection of green and black near the bottom of the bowl and withdrew her finger.

“What are you feeding her?”

“I treat her to bloodworms and shrimp every few hours. Why?”

“That’s way too much, feed her twice a day at most. And stick to pellets with that live stuff only occasionally. Please don’t tell me our fridge is filled with worms.”

“And so what if it is? Elizabeth is a hunter, she needs to earn her fill.”

“Fine, but only give her victims once or twice a day. What she’s not eating is rotting at the bottom of the bowl. Which reminds me, ditch the bowl. Get her a tank, or at least something with a filter and some room to swim around in.”

“The tanks in the pet store were asking for too much. Hundreds for a glass box,” Ashley said, following up with another scoff.

“I’ll go in with you next time and we will pick out a nice one for her if you want. I’ll even pitch in if the price is a sticking point-”

“It isn’t! Just the principle of it all.”

“Fine. I’ll pitch in even if the principle is a sticking point for you. Just pick a day next week and we’ll go.”

“I’ll go check my calendar,” Ashley said before exiting, leaving Victoria with her new roommate.

Leaning forward in her seat to make sure Ashley was well down the hallway, she dipped her hand into the bowl and touched the skull, her fingernail hesitantly flicking the plastic. She breathed a sigh of relief.


	12. OC Rain Revolution

Maria missed the rain. She missed the sound of raindrops dancing on shingles and watching the twin boys next door play soccer shirtless in their backyard. It wasn’t that the rain had gone away though, it just changed.

“Thank you all for coming to this celebration,” the costumed woman said. The voice felt artificial through the megaphone and even more so as it echoed through the speakers placed all over the town square. 

Maria gulped and raised her head to the sky. The sun had gone behind the clouds one day and never bothered to come back. She had always heard that the sky cried when it rained, gray clouds getting so heavy and burdened that they eventually wept when in became too much. But now it was if the dark sky screamed. A fat drop landed on Maria’s forehead and she wiped it away with gloved fingers before it could trickle to the exposed skin of the eye holes in her mask. 

“We are here to celebrate victory! Life! Retribution!” the woman shouted, stopping to emphasize each word. Maria could hear a small crowd woop after each pause. Most of the crowd was silent, choosing to say nothing at all in fear of saying the wrong thing. 

It felt like a funeral, and in some ways it was. There were hundreds of them packed into the courtyard, or what was left of it. Beautiful stone statuettes and fountainheads had been eaten away and the streets were so lumpy cars could no longer make their travel safely down them. It was like that in all of Havana at this point, ugly plastic tarps covering homes and storefronts. 

“This is retribution for the thousands lost over the decades. For our brothers and sisters. Our mothers and fathers. Our sons and daughters.”

The woman and a few of the other costumed revolutionaries who had taken over the country stood high on a balcony, an awning keeping the acid off of them as they looked over the crowd. A man stood beside her, completely nude other than rope bindings that kept his hands taut behind his back. 

“This is the way forward for Cuba. We shall rid ourselves of the venomous snakes and diseased rodents who plague this country and move ahead to a brighter, stronger future!”

More woops followed this time than before. Maria tried to pinpoint what direction the more supportive groups were. This was going to come down to positioning and timing, which were luckily some of her stronger suits. The acid rain provided many detriments to Maria’s life but it did help with her cape activities. People rarely went outside anymore and when they did they dressed as the people in the crowd did with hoods pulled up to protect hair and hard plastic masks over the face.

She nudged her way forward, careful not to cause too much of a disturbance while limiting the angle between her and the loudmouth woman. Even with a few days of practicing on the banana tree in her backyard, her power was still fuzzy when it had to handle depth perception. 

The woman handed her megaphone to a cape in electric blue beside her and the feedback gave Maria a sense of urgency as the woman grabbed the naked man by his arms and pushed him to the edge of the balcony. He was a member of the old guard, a once high ranking military official that these usurpers felt needed to be eradication. The executions were commonplace over the first few days, often earning cheers as the former monsters met their ends at the hands of the newer monsters. But when the rain kept falling and the grass and beaches and crops kept dying the cheers got quieter and quieter each time. 

Dammit, Maria thought. She didn’t have the time to do this how she wanted. She was going to have to guess and it was going to get messy. Every step Maria took became less and less measured as she tried to close the gap between herself and the warlord. The distance was too hard to tell but Maria had to act regardless. She rubbed her thumb and index finger together to manifest a thin, black needle. 

It was hers and hers alone, nonexistent to the rest of the world. She held it like a dart and took stock of its weight, one end a bit heavier than the other. Maria shifted it in her hand so she held the heavy end and took aim, pretending to scratch at her temple. She had an incredibly tight window to work with. If she was too close then she would miss and if she was too far then it’d be worse than missing.

She fired, the dart flying forward and ignoring the acid falling from the sky and the wind. Maria’s aim was true as it headed straight for the woman’s head. She watched with bated breath as it sailed forward, worried that she had judged the distance too poorly. The way the woman held the man had him situated directly in front of her and the needle was level with his throat. 

It harmlessly passed through him, materializing just as it passed through his body and entered the woman’s. It crudely hung out of her cheek like an acupuncture needle might and the necrosis was immediate. Maria knew she should’ve turned away, to weasel her way out of the crowd.

Instead, she stared as the woman’s mask melted away, the blue of the material vaporizing. She staggered back and for a brief moment Maria could see the panic in her eyes. Skin drooped and blackened from the point the dart made contact. She scraped at the needle with her ungloved hands, the skin proudly exposed as the only person immune to the toxic rain. She’d regret that now, Maria thought as the skin wasted away into ashes. She fell to her knees and her teammates backed away, her face dissolved and eye sockets empty.

It would spread to every part of her until nothing was left and guttural screams became muffled noises until there was only silence. No cheers. No gasps. No rain.


	13. OC Sorority

“It was a good try,” Melissa said, her voice like velvet rubbing inside Isabella’s ears. “I’m serious, you did great. Right, Liv?”

Olivia nodded, each motion spilling blood from the deep gash in her throat. She and the other dozen or so girls stood in a loose half circle behind Melissa, each in a different monochromatic dress. Preference Day was so lame.

“See? Even Liv agrees, there’s no hard feelings or anything,” Melissa continued. “Everyone goes through these temper tantrums after they first join, it’s nothing worth beating yourself up over.”

Maria was bathed in relief and comfort as the words registered. Her body felt as if she had just sunken into a warm bath and if she sighed every trouble and worry would leave her body. Maria fought the feeling as well as she could with her power, a scratching sensation starting inside the small of her back.

The discomfort did enough to bring her mind out of the happy place and back into her nightmare. With some effort, she broke her stare off of Melissa and focused on the bloody cuts on Olivia where Maria had cut her up. There was a small satisfaction in how much that must have hurt. 

Not that it mattered, one of the other girls must have had some power that kept her among the living. Regeneration or pain mitigation maybe? Melissa’s voice stole her attention once more.

“We’re sisters here and sisters fight sometimes. But that just means we’re one big family. Don’t you agree?”

*Yes, yes, a thousand times yes*. 

Every part of her yearned to agree and answer in a way that brought those warm feelings back.

“No. We’re not sisters, or family, or even friends, you psycho bi-,” 

Maria coughed, throat going dry and coarse as her body punished her until she stopped trying to speak. Melissa closed the gap between them and Maria tried looking away, only for her eyes to burn and water. The irritation faded when she looked into Melissa’s eyes, the calming feeling washing back over her.

“You’re a sister, Izzy. You wanted to join, you were accepted, you’re one of us forever and ever,” Melissa said. She leaned closer and caressed her cheek, the touched skin instantly tingling. “And because of that, I forgive you.”

Melissa turned to the colorful legion behind her, her long blonde hair so close to Isabella’s face that she could make out the tropical shampoo. 

“Do we forgive her ladies?” Melissa shouted.

“Yes!” the congregation screamed back.

“Alpha Chi!” 

“‘Til we die!”

The crowd erupted into whooping and cheering. This wasn’t the whole sorority and Isabella hoped that the girls gathered here didn’t all have powers either. She was kicking herself for not gathering more research before taking them on, but patience was exactly her strong suit. 

“Plus, your power is really cool! Rachel you’re a cape geek-”

“Just because I’m a para studies major doesn’t make me a geek!” Rachel squawked.

“Whatever, fine you’re not a geek. Isn’t Izzy’s power cool? She’s like a shapeshifter type,” Melissa got behind her and rested her head on her shoulder, causing Isabella to flinch. “We’re like twins!”

Even the artificial praise and compliments felt so good to hear. They were like twins in appearance only, Isabella having used Melissa’s likeness to ambush Olivia a few hours ago in the bathroom after using her power. The changes would be permanent until the day Isabella died. Isabella focused her power, deciding to make that day today. 

She wished it was as simple as shapeshifting. Isabella felt a fist-sized lump growing under , pressing hard against the chair. Tiny teeth and nails scratched angrily as the tumor wormed its way up her back. The pain as it tried clawing its way out from under her skin helped distract her from the girls fawning over Melissa.

“It’s definitely unique for sure. We have fliers, shooters, healers, and boosters but no changers. Nothing quite like you, Izzy. You’re so special.”

A flood of gratification forced a smile on Isabella’s face.

“I see you left out mind controlling whackjo-” another coughing fit cut her off. Melissa’s reaffirming smile never left.

“My power isn’t mind controlling, it keeps people honest,” Melissa said. “That’s why it hurts so much to lie or keep secrets. It’s okay, though I’m willing to stay here and talk to you as long as it takes. Normally the little pow-wow is saved for Bid Night after we do our little rush week fun.”

The lump reached the back of her 

“You call getting vodkaboarded fun? Getting stripped naked and forced to watch all of your clothes burn? That’s fun for you?”

“Just light hazing.”

“Helen’s in a coma!”

“Helen couldn’t hang. You hung in and *excelled*. Now look at you, you’re so much better,” Melissa continued, each sound from her lips like honey as she leaned in close enough to whisper. “We will make you the best *you* you can be. You’re going to be a superhero, it’s so exciting!”

Excitement injected itself into Isabella’s bloodstream and giddiness took over. It didn’t matter now, she didn’t have to fight all of the genuinely good feelings that came from listening to the sociopath standing before her. Isabella’s head throbbed just from thinking of Melissa in that way but it didn’t matter. 

The tumor wiggled it’s way from the back of her neck to her throat and she prayed the scarf hid it. 

“You’re right, Mel,” Isabella said with a grin, forcing herself past the sharp pain in her head as she continued. “You made me like this and I’m so, so thankful. I am going to be a superhero and the first thing I’m going to do is rip your fuh-faugh-fucking throat out you cra-agh-crazy bitch!”

The lump in her throat used long legs to launch itself out of her mouth, claws and fangs tearing up her throat and tongue until she only tasted blood. The creature looked like the bastard child of a spider, crab, and rat as it latched onto Melissa’s shoulder and started ripping away. Isabella could only watch, vision blurring from the pain as she bled out. 

She was to be discarded, to waste away while the creature lived in her place. It was her and it wasn’t her, clone too poor of a word to describe it. It would grow into whatever person it wanted to be and Isabella could only hope it would choose wisely when it grew up. 

“And m-my name isn’t Izzy” The words came easier with Melissa distracted despite her own throat ripped to shreds. “It’s Isabella.”

She would leave the superhero name to the demon that was digging its way through Melissa’s torso. The world faded to black as screams filled the sorority basement and they never felt so good.


	14. Alexandria Flirts

Alexandria didn’t sweat and she took a little pride in knowing she was the only person at the restaurant who wasn’t. Or well, the only one other than who was responsible for the extreme heat. It was a hot summer night in California but the latest member of the Los Angeles Protectorate made it nearly unbearable.

“You sure you don’t want some?” Hotshot asked, his sixth pair of chopsticks doing work on a spicy tuna roll. Fire spilled off of every part of his body, a muscled body hidden beneath.

“Very sure,” she said.

“Too hot for you?”

His smile was infectious.

“Just not a fan of sushi, really.”

“Shame,” he said. Hotshot dropped the burning chopsticks into a glass of water, a satisfying sizzle drowning out his next words. God bless her lip reading.

“About an hour south of here near Anaheim,” she responded without skipping a beat.

“Isn’t it kind of blasphemous for a valley girl to be against sushi?”

“Rich coming from some Beverly Hills reject.”

He chuckled and she followed suit, and not just because it was the socially intelligent response. The laughter was genuine for the first time in a long time. She wished she could do it more but her breath was running short.

“Can you turn it down a notch at all?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“No can do. I’ve got one setting all day, every day. You’ll have to handle the heat.”

“I handled it when I kicked your ass all over Sunset Boulevard as a Ward, I can handle it now.”

“Oh yeah?”

Again with that smile. He had grown up so much since then, turning over a new leaf to go hero and joining her team. Alexandria was glad her body didn’t blush as she gave him an exaggerated once over, checking out his physique in a not-so-joking way.

“Yeah. We can head somewhere private if you want to find out for certain.”

He leaned back and broke apart another set of chopsticks.

“I thought the new recruit tradition was just dinner, but is there some… *hazing* that I have to go through too?”

Alexandria leaned forward, her power helping her voice reach the perfect pitch between smooth and sultry.

“Only as much as you can take big guy.”

Her visor hid the look she was giving but Alexandria thought he got the point. She stood up, sweeping her cape behind her and tossing some bills on the partially melted patio table. 

“Train’s leaving, hop on if you want a ride,” she said, reaching out a hand and getting out from under the awning. 

Hotshot shoveled a few more pieces of sushi in his mouth before hurrying over to her. He took her hand and she pulled him in close until she was engulfed in flames and could feel his body against hers. They shot off into the sky like a rocket, a trail of fire behind them.

***

Hotshot groaned as he landed hard against the rooftop.

“What the hell are you-”

A punch to the gut knocked the wind out of him and he doubled over, coughing up chunks of magma that melted into the concrete.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Alexandria said, strutting over to him and kicking him in the chin. 

His body flew a few feet back, flames licking the path where his body skidded along the roof. She flew through them until she had his throat in her grasp, resisting the urge to squeeze knowing that it would instantly kill him. Yet he still seemed to be struggling for some reason.

“Have you gotten weaker? I expected you to at least be prepared after our little talk at the restaurant.”

“I-I thought tha-th-that we were-” he sputtered.

She chucked Hotshot down and stood over him as he threw up lava. Pathetic. She had hoped that he was stronger since the Nemesis days, but same old Hotshot. At least he was cute.


	15. Some Ingenue

It was a sunny day for a funeral, Linda thought. For a day that was so dark that it made her weep all morning, the sun still came out to shine just for her. It was comforting in a way, as if the biggest, warmest thing in the world was lending its support. 

She smiled, earning a rather rude look from one of the women closest to the casket. Linda had distanced herself from the gravesite. Despite what others had to say about her, she knew when to respect personal boundaries. Linda prided herself on restraint, a willingness to step away when all she wanted to do was dive headfirst.

It took every ounce of restraint in her body not to run over to Michael’s lifeless body and bawl her eyes out, not caring who saw the ugly tears she shed. She had loved him more than any woman could ever love, more than his wife ever could. Yet she was the one who had to stand by the trees in a corner like an animal while she was front and center. It wasn’t right, none of this was right.

She felt the tears coming back and she looked towards the sky, forcing herself to swallow them back down. Michael deserved so much better than this, she thought. He deserved a monument on a hilltop, not a hole in the ground. Linda clutched the bouquet of roses in her hand so hard that they threatened to snap. 

“It’s a shame, don’t you think?” a man said, taking a drag of a cigarette. He was tall and at least had the decency to come out near the trees to smoke, but he was bland. There was no color inside him, no sparks beyond the surface.

“A shame is putting it lightly. This is a travesty.”

He didn’t respond right away, instead finishing his cigarette and flicking it on the ground. He crushed it underneath his foot and then pulled out another. She rolled her eyes.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” she said.

“There’s worse ways to go. Just ask Mike,” he said, adding on a chuckle at the end.

She nearly hit him, her hands making fists so tight that nails pierced skin. She used the pain to center herself, imagining that it was the feeling he’d get if she were to claw out his throat until there was nothing left. Restraint. 

“That’s highly inappropriate,” she said, soaking the words in as much venom as she could muster. “How do you even know Michael anyway?”

“College roommates, not close until about a year ago when he got me a job with the department. Pencil pushing, that kind of thing.”

Her contempt for the man only got stronger. The PRT had ruined Michael, crushed his dreams into dust with promised promotions that never came and overworking him to the point that only she could make him smile. He had been with them since he was a ward and in just three months Linda had made him into the strongest cape Seattle had ever seen. 

All he had gotten from them was a lifetime of disappointment and a tacky black and white memorial portrait in the PRT foyer. She had done her best to destroy it the night after it was put up, but security was tight and she was never quite good at going solo. She missed him so much, her knight in shining armor.

“And you?”

She had forgotten he was even there for a moment. 

“We were lovers,” Linda said proudly. 

“Is that so?”

“Absolutely so. He loved me up until the very end and I love him still,” she said, staring at the casket, lost in weeks and weeks of laughter and memories.

“Did Susanne know?” the man asked, putting out another cigarette.

“Not while he was alive, no. Michael was strong in many ways, but gentle when it came to that. He couldn’t bear to break her heart,” she said. Her eyes drifted to the widow, focused more on consoling her crying kid than saying goodbye to her husband. “She found out when the lawyer detailed the changes Michael made to his will.”

“You two must have been really close then. Did you two meet on one of those cape dating apps?”

“Absolutely not! We met at a bar, a nice dive spot that I normally wouldn’t be caught dead in except I knew he frequented it from his posts. It was really casual. He was wearing his costume and I chose a dress in a color that matched and we just hit it off.”

“So you’re like a cape groupie?”

“I hate that term, I really do. I don’t just sleep with any schmuck in a costume, I pick out good guys. Genuinely good, great guys and-”

“And then you make them go crazy.”

She wheeled on him and slapped him as hard as she could, interrupting whatever babbling the minister was droning on about as people turned. The man barely flinched.

“How dare you!”

“Am I wrong? You seduce these people and make them into monsters.”

“I make them into who they’re meant to be! I make them strong and loving. I turn them into who they were all along!”

She turned to face the group closer to the casket, the unsupportive family and friends who drove Michael mad. 

“You’re all so blind! Pretending that you knew him when you couldn’t even see how much he suffered. I see him for what he truly is, even now with his fire snuffed out.”

The man forced her hands behind her back and shackled her with handcuffs. On instinct she reached out with her power and felt it ripple out to the group of 30 or 40 in the field. There was a collective gasp, but the ripple went unanswered. Not a single person here was special in any way.

“Pathetic! All of you!” she snarled. “He would be so ashamed that he died for nothing. He took all of those lives for what? It wasn’t for any of you. He did it for me! And now you’re taking away the one thing he truly loved.”

Linda made her body dead weight, forcing the man to drag her to whatever PRT van was waiting for her. She looked up at a sky filled with clouds and felt truly alone.


	16. Dragon vs. Ingenue

Ingenue sat with near perfect posture, back curved, head held high, and legs crossed at their ankles beneath the metal chair. The yellow light from the lamp shined down on her like a spotlight, her stage a small room of gray walls with only a door as decoration. 

It was easy to view her as an actress, Dragon thought. She certainly had the face and body for it, even though the bright orange jumpsuit and handcuffs took away some of the allure and elegance. Her eyes were downcast, fixated on picking at a loose thread on her sleeve.

“How’s the food?” Ingenue asked. Hereyes rising to meet Dragon’s in the television screen. “Or better than bologna and beans at least?”

“It’ll be three meals a day, organic if you need them to be,” Dragon said, her voice tinny as it echoed from the speakers. “Don’t expect steak and wine, but you’ll get sufficient protein and sustenance. Sweets on occasion.”

Her eyes lit up a little at that, like a kid told they were getting ice cream. All part of the act.

“Godiva?”

“Maybe.”

Ingenue chewed at the inside of her lip, wheels turning in her head as she gave the idea some thought. 

“The Cage huh?” she said to herself, adding a small laugh before looking down at the table.

Dragon let the words sit with her for a few minutes. Her facial recognition program was running its course, keeping track of every shift in expression and tone. Some of it was overt like the way her lip pouted and eyebrows raised to look pitiable. And some of it was more subtle as she purposefully painted this picture of a strong woman in a vulnerable state. 

And yet Dragon could still almost fall for the facade. Sending people to the Birdcage was hardly easy and there was a certain part of her that even like Ingenue. She was genuinely funny in the brief talks they’ve had with a sense of humor Dragon didn’t really get but still appreciated.

“You already know who is there right? Any guys my type?”

“This is serious, Ingenue.”

“I’m being serious!” she shouted back, mumbling an apology for raising her voice.

Dragon’s analysis programs toiled away, feeding her data on the intent behind the sudden flash of anger. She had tried to appear unstable or as if she was on the verge of a breakdown, similar to how some criminals would feigned insanity as a plea for therapy or asylum over prison. Not getting a response, she changed tact.

“I’m a people person,” Ingenue said. “But only with good people. Truly good people. I can’t spend the rest of my life with murderers and demons. They’ll kill me, I’ll be dead in a month.”

You have a rap sheet longer than most of the people in there, Dragon thought. She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing trying to act like a lamb led to the slaughter.

“I think you should be giving yourself a lot more credit.”

“I don’t,” she squeaked, her voice so shaky and small that it made Dragon second guess every part of her that was convinced this was acting. “I’m going to die in there. Maybe not in a month but one day I will. It’s not just another prison, it will be my coffin.”

“Ingenue, we’re out of options here.”

“Find one? Please? I don’t want to go in there. I can’t,” Ingenue said, sapphire eyes growing wet as she held eye contact with Dragon and refused to let go. “I heard rumors about villains going hero to pay for past crimes. Even Murderbeam found a place with you guys. Couldn’t something like that be arranged for me?”

Dragon made her image on the screen shake its head.

“We can’t have a repeat of what happened in Montreal.”

Ingenue went silent at that, the only sound that Dragon’s speakers picked up were her hitched breaths and quiet splashes of tears on the table. After composing herself she spoke.

“I loved him, you know?” 

*So did his wife and sons*

“I know,” Dragon said, keeping the words she wanted to tell her to herself. 

And then suddenly it was like an idea had gone off for Ingenue, her strings cut no longer as her body eerily straightened. She reached to move strands of hair that now hung over an eye only to remember her hands were shackled to the table. She left it covered.

“I could help you. You and only you,” Ingenue said.

“I don’t need-”

“I can see what you really are, Dragon.”

Dragon froze and immediately regretted the hesitation. Ingenue continued.

“Or at least what you aren’t,” she said. ”You’ve read my files. You know I’m telling the truth when I say that I *see* things. That I see the energy and the truth behind people with powers.”

Ingenue leaned forward in her seat and Dragon listened.

“I see it with you too. I thought it happened with all tinkers, but no, just you,” she purred. “You’re special, Dragon. I see glimpses of it in your tech. In the cameras that line this prison. In these bracelets on my wrists.”

She violently shook her handcuffs and Dragon flinched, proverbial ears tuned in to every word.

“I see a brilliant green of chains and fire, except it’s hollow. Empty. I’m not sure exactly what you are, but I know I can help you be the best you could ever. Surely you’ve thought about it before.”

“Never,” Dragon lied. 

Of all the resources and people Dragon had ever come across, she knew Ingenue was one of the few that could rid her of the shackles that her creator bound her in. 

“Just extend me this one lifeline and I will owe you everything. Strand me on an island with no one else, just please don’t put me in the Cage.”

“You’d find a way off of it.”

“I won’t. Not with the sun on my back and the wind in my hair,” she said, standing from her seat, hands planted on the table. “Free me. You can do it. We both know you can without anyone really knowing. You make better machines, I make better people. Let me make you a better person.”

A freedom for a freedom, Dragon thought. Every program Dragon had running alerted her to the dangers, a million red flags and error warnings flooding her senses. A cruel reminder that there were no literal heartstrings that could be pulled, just a jumble of data that may never become anything truly human. 

She hated that she was even considering the offer and yet was so scared another opportunity would never come if she were to say no.

“I can’t,” Dragon decided.

“You can!”

“I *can’t*!”

Ingenue slumped back in her seat, her once fiery expression cooling off as she bit the inside of her lip once more. A few moments later she smiled, an unnerving grin that was the first true look Dragon got of the woman.

“Worth a shot.”


	17. Oni Lee vs. Bakuda

From nothing, Lee was born. His first breath was strained, the air thin from the rainy rooftop. Perched on the ledge like a gargoyle, Lee’s eyes struggled adjusting to the neon landscape below him. The lenses of his mask kicked to life, his brief respite offline coming to an end as filters muted the brighter pinks and blues from signs in the market district.

Numbers crept into the corners of his vision, only fading away after he acknowledged them. He dismissed all but his heart rate, 50bpm displayed inside a heart icon that pulsed to the rhythm of his heartbeat. It was important to have a constant, he learned. Every death added up over the years and with those deaths came change he couldn’t control.

Lee inhaled and held the breath, letting the soft thrum of his heart drown out the sound of rain pinging his copper skin. A bright orange dot flared in the center of his sight and he exhaled with a heavy nod.

“She is marked for you down below,” a voice said to him, sounding so close that it was as if he said it. A polite way to tell him he needed to get moving. Lee looked down from the skyscraper, a small, orange blur becoming a woman’s silhouette the longer he stared at it.

“If you are going to hesitate, we can send someone else. You don’t have to be the one who-”

“No,” he said.

Lee jumped from the roof, falling a story per second. The bright red colors in the horns and fangs of his mask were bright in the reflection of the skyscraper's black glass. He twisted his body to face the market as he neared the ground, the orange marker getting closer.  
He reached into his thighs and retrieved two curved knives. Pistons kicked into action in his ankles and then his knees, swiftly replacing the empty holsters with more knives. He wouldn’t need them.

Once the market came into view, his tech gave him options. Columns of lights formed throughout the market, designating vantage points and advantageous positions. He chose, summoning a clone in one of the woman’s blind spots and sending a knife that way soon after.  
He threw his other knife in the woman’s direction and took a deep breath, an eye at his never-changing heart rate. Bloody, mangled bodies littered the market square and Lee joined them, body exploding into machinery and gore before exploding again into white smoke.

From nothing, Lee was born. Breath came easy as he leaned around the ramen cart and plucked the knife his past self had sent him out of the air. The woman stood tall in the center of the market, surrounded by skewered and bisected bodies. She withdrew her katana from a shopkeeper’s corpse and deflected a knife aimed for her head, the sound of metal on metal ringing out.

Lee waited three heartbeats, flung the knife, and sprinted out from his hiding spot with the woman distracted by his past self hitting pavement. With mist in the air, the knife pierced her metal shoulder. She reared back and swung in his direction. He lunged at her, finding a sweet spot between the tip of her blade and the end of her swing. He latched onto the handle of the knife and looked at her mask, a honeycomb pattern of amber and slate hiding her eyes.

“Hey, sis,” he said.

She teleported but he held on, going along with her in a blur of motion that made him feel as if he was in every part of the market at once. He started carving and eventually she stopped, shoving him off of her.

Lee slid across the slick ground but created a clone a few meters away as she wasted no time swinging again. She teleported past him, shredding his body into thousands of ribbons. He felt his body fall to pieces before falling to the ground in a cloud of dust.

From nothing, Lee was born. He immediately kicked on fans built into his arms and legs. He watched as his past self was eviscerated, the ground similarly torn up in a furrow from where she traveled. Lee dashed into the ensuing dust cloud, fans circulating it for temporary cover. Tech kicked back on and Akemi’s silhouette was outlined for him. She stared blankly into the cloud, unflinching and silent.

Past sparring sessions began playing in a corner of Lee’s vision and he couldn’t tell how much of it were his own memories or recordings from the agency that they would use in instances like this. The false memory paused to circle or highlight weaknesses or patterns and Lee took note. He also took note at how they weren’t as broken back then. Faces less scarred and voices less hollow.

They were siblings by circumstance, not blood, but siblings nonetheless. Loss had brought them together at the orphanage and grief had made them strong enough for the agency to take them in. But such feelings broke people, no matter how much they used it to steel themselves and shut out the outside. Everyone broke, the only question was when. For Akemi that time was now. Their old orphanage was swallowed up by waves and the last part of Akemi was swallowed up along with it.  
The smoke cleared and Lee dismissed the memory videos. He retrieved two knives from his thighs and started forward, stepping over some remains. Lee inhaled and began.

From nothing, Lee was born. Behind Akemi, he slashed out and knife found katana as she defended without turning. His past self rushed her and she used the blunt end to keep him at bay. It was a waiting game and she knew it, playing defense and taking a few slashes until his past self exploded. Akemi whirled around, swinging in a wide arc and teleporting away, destroying a fountain but leaving him unscathed. He continued the assault.

From nothing, Lee was born. He dropped to his knees, in a risky position between both Akemi and his past self as one strike from her would drop them both. His past self stepped on his back and a combined effort sent him flying forward. Lee hurled his knives and cloned himself again.

From nothing, Lee was- a metal hand grabbed his throat and pulled him in front of the thrown knives, curses from his past self heard. He created another clone before the katana split him, groin to scalp.

From nothing, Lee was born. His hands went to his injured throat and the knives were still in his back but he was in one piece. He scrambled backwards as the raised katana impaled his oldest past self that had leaped. Both of the dead turned to dust and the past self who threw the knives tackled her through the cloud, the pair rolling along the wet pavement until slamming into a vegetable stand. The katana was sent in the opposite direction.

From nothing, Lee was born. He reached for the katana and his hand was burned upon touching it. Biometric screening dismissing him. He slumped to one knee in exhaustion but his past self was winning his fight. Akemi’s hands twitched and grasped for anything to use but his past self had her pinned and raised a knife up to plunge it through her heart.

His past self disappeared into dust before he could give the killing blow.

There was neither relief nor surprise from Akemi as she grabbed the knife and stood up. She made quick slashes for short range teleportation, flickering across the market in seconds to close the distance. She threw it at him but his last past self flung himself in the way, knife burying itself in his cheekbone.  
With no weapons left to teleport she sprinted at him as his past self died with eyes wide open, mask shattered. Maybe it was because she could never commit when she was blinded and knew the white smoke was coming. Or maybe seeing his past self’s exposed face had broken her just a little further. But for a single heartbeat, she hesitated.

Lee didn’t, a clone spawning behind her with katana in hand. The other Lee sent it through her chest and left it there, letting it go with steam coming from his hands. Lee did the same, letting go of the katana he momentarily grabbed. Akemi fell forward, eyes still masked but the life gone from her body. He took a deep breath and allowed himself to grieve, knowing his clone wouldn’t carry it over.


	18. OC Master Minion

Thirty-One tapped its claw to the rooftop, the night air doing little to cool its growing agitation. Finally, the door opened and the little men filed out like ants, one after another until all seven had been gathered. Six of the seven had shooters and it was the empty-handed one that spoke.

“Did you come alone?” the man asked as the others took formation behind him. Thirty-One rolled all of its eyes.

“Yes. This one obeys the rules,” Thirty-One said, vibrations throughout its body slurring the words. It pointed a long claw at the man and tilted its head in amusement when the others tensed. “You do not.”

“The guns are just for protection, this is pretty uncharted territory.”

“Shooters are for killing, for blasting, for dying. Shields are for protecting, yet you have no shields.”

“Shields don’t really do much protecting when up against your… kind.”

“Neither do shooters,” Thirty-One said, resisting the urge to lurch forward and scare them further. Humans did worse when in fear, missing with shooters and standing still in shock. They had conquered so much, yet learned so little.

“Did you read our offer?” the empty-handed one asked.

“Yes.”

There was silence as if Thirty-One hadn’t heard the next question. But no question came, it was certain, every antennae focused on hearing instead of smelling. Thirty-One cocked its head, which seemed to remind the little man to keep speaking.

“Does it work for you? You give us information and in exchange we make sure you have a way out of the city before things get bad.”

“This one likes that but likes more. Give way out for this one and this one’s family. One more for sure, three more for unsure. The winter is cold and the trees lose leaves soon.”

“Absolutely not. The implications of that alone regarding mass reproduction make that an impossible sell to the higher-ups.”

Thirty-One’s wings fluttered from its back as instinct took hold of its mind. Impulses to attack and to kill and to feast until only the bony bits were left. Instincts that took so much effort to remove. 

“I have seen you humans do many things, you can do this as well.”

“I can’t. Getting practically witness protection for you is hard enough and we’ll have this exact same problem in Wyoming if I let that happen. No.”

“Tell them truths on how this one is different. Tell them these things until this one hears yes. Until I hear that, you will not hear anything.”

The man shifted his posture, growing comfortable. Humans were talkers and the empty-handed one liked talking. Agitation coursed through Thirty-One’s body, hard shell humming from eyestalk to clawtip. 

“Frankly, the information isn’t that important to us. We have a few thinkers working on a solution and are in a position to call in some favors.”

Thirty-One edged forward, mouth curled like she had seen Mother do when making a point.

“Then tell them other truths.Tell them that there are thousands different from this one, with hopes and with dreams to see blood and hear screams. This one can keep those cries for dead things quiet or this one can make the cries louder.”

“Threatening us won’t help-”

“Our Mother is dead,” Thirty-One said, giving information that was only told in whispers. “Plaguebringer, the masked ones called her, yes? She birthed us in vats and in tanks, making us with fangs and claws to gnash and to scratch but limiting us from killing. Except Mother made mistakes. She made us and we made more of us and this one was the first of many brothers and sisters bred without those limits. We tore her to shreds and divided the shreds evenly to feast on.”

One of the men gave up his lunch to the rooftop but Thirty-One focused on the hearing instead of smelling. The empty-handed man had gone quiet and Thirty-One was certain he knew it spoke the truth. Lies were for humans, false words because the truths hurt to hear. Thirty-One could tell that this truth hurt too.

Humans had survived so much and then stopped caring about surviving with nothing left to push them. The Locusts would push them until there was nothing left to push. Thirty-One knew the caped ones would push back harder, and the Locusts would not survive such things.

“Tell us what you know and we can arrange things for you and your family.”

“This one likes these sounds. Now, this one likes more. Give things to feast on, cows and horses like we feast on now. Do this and this one will not outgrow ten.”

The man quickly agreed and Thirty-One told the whispers it heard in dark corners of the hive. It told of the settlements, the ambushes, even of the evolved ones who doubled Thirty-One’s size. It would make sure the Locusts could not push too harshly and then it would leave to ensure it survived. 

Every inch of Thirty-One buzzed in delight when it finished, wings spreading wide from its back as it flitted away into the night’s sky. The little men on the roof seemed less pleased.


	19. Food Critic Lisa

Lisa grabbed the tentacle and pulled, her nails easily piercing the golden breading as she yanked it free of the ornate display. She always hated things that tried to be unique for the sake of being unique. Dozens upon dozens of strands of fried calamari sat on her plate, a ramiken of dipping sauce sitting in the middle to serve as the “head” of what was supposed to be an octopus.

Same size strips. Too similar, too neat. More like a flower than an octopus. A lotus. Careful knifework. Significant time taken to cut from ringlets. More than 10 minutes, less than 15. Not usual attention. They knew she was coming. Predicted evening visit-

She banished the train of thought as her mouth watered, regretting coming in as hungry as she had. Squid strip in hand, Lisa dunked it into the red sauce, coating half before reeling it back out. She blew on it before popping it into her mouth and once the sauce made contact with her tongue it was like a firecracker had gone off in her mind.

Runny; not ketchup-based. Tomatoes. Fresh, roasted, blended. Cool, not cold. Refrigerated for less than an hour. Unexpected heat; not hot sauce. Horseradish. A lot of horseradish. Not enough Worcestershire sauce to balance. Zesty, lemon or lime.

She began chewing into calamari with the sauce fresh on her tongue.

Breading falling apart. Flaky, light, not breadcrumbs. Panko. Asian-inspired. Definitely a lotus.

Focus.

Panko; absorbs less than traditional breadcrumbs. Squid becomes oily, but crunchy. Crunch offset by calamari. Conflicting texture. Overcooked. Rubbery and-

“Is everything to your liking Miss Wilbourn?”

Lisa swallowed. Rude. The waiter had been standing there since he dropped off the appetizer and Lisa tried her best to ignore the man while she worked on the deep-fried flower. She gave him the most exaggerated smile she could muster.

“Oh yes, I really do love rubber bands chucked in a vat of grease to start my dinner,” she told him, each word laced with sarcastic venom.

The waiter looked a bit dumbfounded and Lisa pushed the barely touched plate forward for him to grab it.

“My apologies, I’m sorry you did not like our signature Crowned Calamari. It can be a bit tough at times but-”  
“You can save yourself the culinary lesson. I know squid isn’t exactly supposed to fall right off the proverbial bone but it also shouldn’t take a chainsaw to get chew through. When you take that back to your manager or chef or whoever it is that keeps poking their head through the little window to stare at me, tell them to spend a little more time watching the fryer and a little less time making pretty petals.”

“Petals?”

“Tentacles. Whatever.”

The waiter slowly reached out and grabbed the plate, moving with the same apprehension that a zookeeper might take a steak back from a lion. Jesus, she wasn’t going to bite him or anything, although she might if he brought her more inedible nonsense.

“Would you like me to bring you another starter that would be more suitable? Our soup of the day is a lobster bisque and we have wonderful Caesar salad that I’m sure you would love.” The waiter winked after making the suggestion and Lisa internally groaned and not so internally rolled her eyes.

“Let’s skip the foreplay shall we,” she leaned in and squinted to check his name tag, “Malcolm? Somehow, you guys knew I would be coming here tonight and the folks in the kitchen have been laboring away all day just for me.”

Eyes widened; surprised and alarmed, not confused. Confirmation he’s in on it. Attractive. Earlier attempt at humor. Best waiter here. Chosen to serve me.

Lisa smirked as the information flowed to her as she continued. 

“Let’s just skip the song and dance where you suggest something, I disagree, and you use that charm your boss thinks you have to convince me to get whatever special entree you guys have planned. Lobster? It’s definitely lobster. Bold choice, bring it out.”

Malcolm’s stunned blinks were confirmation enough that crustacean was headed her way.

“Yes ma’am. Anything else?” he asked, his voice hitching at the question he didn’t want ask.

“Yes, don’t call me ma’am. You’re 25,” Lisa guessed, “and I’m far from being your elder.”

He nodded and walked off. Lisa’s head throbbed a little from him not knowing if she was right about his age, another ques 

“Hey, wait!” She called out to him and he made his way back.

“Yes?”

“How did you guys know I was coming in tonight?”

“It’s the 15th.”

With that definitive answer, he left. Lisa put her hands to her temples, the fingertips making contact with the black, felt fabric of the mask that covered the middle third of her face. She was going to kill her editor.

The entire reason food critics were so feared by the culinary community was because of the element of surprise. That went right out the window when she had a blabbermouth editor so obsessed with page views that she’d change Lisa into something like the superheroes who paraded around town in pajamas. Or a supervillain rather, if Lisa’s reputation was anything to go by.

She had always been hard to please as far as food went, but one bad run in at Taco Bus six months ago had made her an icon overnight. After trashing the long standing Brockton establishment it shut down, although that was likely due to an F rating from the health inspection rather than the F rating she gave it on her blog. 

Her site gained traction after that as if she had plotted their demise and the nicknames came rolling in as her reputation grew. After she was hired by the Brockton Times she was given a new identity by her editor, Tia.

The Ides. 

Lisa thought it was clever at first, the name comparing the assured destruction she gave Miguel’s to the eventual fall of the Roman empire. But six months had just made things more troublesome as Tia insisted she wear a mask, claiming that capes were “in” right now. 

And now what had once been an inside joke that Lisa would only work on her namesake day each month was apparently being spread around like wildfire. It was only a coincidence that she actually had powers that helped her become the best food critic in the city. 

Lisa didn’t care about the theatrics, she just wanted to eat. Through the porthole window into the kitchen she could spot the chef and waiter talking, the older man with the tall hat sporting a worried look as he peered at her just to see her staring back. Lisa grinned and waved. 

“Just bring me some food dammit” she muttered before taking another sip of water.

How many other restaurants out in the Bay were planning special food on the off-case she chose them tonight? Was there some butcher at a barbecue joint anxiously watching the door? Could there be a slice of cheesecake with her name on it at the bakery up the road?

Lisa’s stomach growled as she fantasized about the food she wouldn’t be having tonight. Instead she sat here at End of the Bay, already preparing herself for the seafood that awaited her. She was nearly drooling when the waiter came back, her plate and the head chef close along with him. 

“Hello, I’m Ryan Shepherd, executive chef here at End of the Bay,” the man in the white jacket said, “I would like to apologize for the earlier dish.”

Calls himself an executive chef at a dive joint. Desire to look professional. Fidgeting; nervous, worried, scared. Removed hat from before, hair tidy. Combed it in mirror before coming out. Nervous. Wants good impression.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Lisa responded.

“Likewise. It’s not every day that The Ides herself comes to try your food.”

Lisa cringed, mostly from bring called that in public but also from the awkward subject-verb agreement of her nickname that made the writer inside her scream.

The plate was set down in front of her and Lisa was surprised by the simplicity. It was indeed lobster, but chopped up and stuffed inside a hot dog bun glistening with butter. Accompanying it was some broccoli and a mac and cheese with bright, red crumbs scattered on top. She grabbed the napkin in her lap and converted it into bib, before picking up the lobster roll. 

So much butter. It dripped down her wrist and Lisa had to act fast and bite it before it dripped into her lap.

Lobster; delicious, too hot. Melting butter too quickly. Soggy bread. Something under the lobster.

“Tomato?!” Lisa shouted as best she could with a full mouth. She grabbed her bib and spat the contents in her mouth into it. “Why the hell is there tomato on this?”

“W-what? The diced tomato was meant to go with the heat of the lobster, like a slaw to a cold roll.” Ryan explained.

“Have you ever chucked a tomato in the microwave for a quick snack?” Lisa asked, tossing the roll on her plate in disgust. “Putting tomato on a hot roll is blasphemous.”

Lisa grabbed her fork and stabbed a floret of broccoli, trying to at least satisfy her hunger while she continued to tear into him.

“What you’ve done is like putting pineapple in spaghetti!”

“I’m sorry, I c-” 

“It’s like baking onions into cookies,” Lisa cut him off and scooped up some of the mac and cheese, “You should be asha-”

Lisa froze as the mac and cheese went into her mouth.

Tasted this before.

The creamy sauce and strangely spicy crumbs had Lisa’s mind racing to find where she had had it before.

Undercooked noodles.

No. Wrong detail. Her heart sunk a little as the nostalgic taste took hold.

Creamy cheese; cheddar based, heated at temperatures between-

No. Dammit. What was this feeling? Where had she had it before?

“Ma’am, are you okay? I can take it back if you’d like.”

Lisa shushed him.

Spicy crumbs. Hot sauce infused bread crumbs. Tastes familiar.

She rolled one of the crumbs over her tongue.

Familiarity. Bittersweet. Nostalgia and hurt and sadness yet comfort. Melancholy.

Melancholy. With that Lisa remembered where she had tasted this mac and cheese before. It was before she became The Ides. Before she became Lisa. 

She remembered crying at the dinner table after her parents had found her report card, tears falling on the paper with failed grades. Sitting there alone after they went to clean the kitchen, her plate of food untouched. She remembered her brother Rex hugging her when her parents weren’t looking. He took her plate and returned it with red crumbs on top. She remembered taking a bite and her tears stopping. His supposed secret weapon against bland cooking.

Lisa looked down at her plate and swallowed the food in her mouth and the feelings deep in her throat.

“What’re the breadcrumbs?” Lisa asked, raising another spoonful and gestured it towards the pair. They shared a look and it was Malcolm the waiter that spoke up.

“It’s Fla-” Ryan nudged him with an elbow and Lisa rolled her eyes

“Look, I won’t publish recipes or secret ingredients, just tell me please,” Lisa implored.

“It’s not that. It’s just that you’re a big deal with refined tastes and-”

“And what?” she asked. Lisa took another bite, trying to rely on her intuition.

“And well, they’re Cheetos.”

Lisa was silent for a few moments before falling into a fit of laughter, the sound filling the restaurant. Flaming hot Cheetos sprinkled on top of mac and cheese. She wanted to hate it but just ended up laughing harder, imagining her brother stashing bags of Cheetos under the dinner table.

“Do you- do you like it?” Ryan asked as her laughter subsided.

“Not at all.”

Lisa took another bite.


	20. French Revolution Canary

Pain, blood, and death. Who knew patriotism could lead to this, Paige thought. 

The stench of gunpowder and fire assaulted her nostrils, the smoke finding its way into her cell from the Parisian streets below. She craned her head to get a view out of the barred window and the guard grabbed her by the face.

“Want a look, do you?” he said, hand squeezing hard enough it threatened to shatter her jaw. With lips puckered together, she struggled to shake her head. The guard was a little man, but it was the littlest men who felt like they had the most to prove. He released her, throwing her head aside. “Stand, whore.”

From her knees, Paige struggled to get to her feet with the slurry of vomit and waste offering little purchase. She slipped and felt the cobblestone scrape the skin from her knees. That pain was overshadowed by the kick to her ribs.

“I said stand!” he shouted before delivering another blow with his boot. With her hands and feet bound, it took a few more tries and a few more kicks for her to get up. 

Paige stood on the tips of her toes, her soles previously whipped and lashed to the point that skin hung loose. Her arms, chest, and back were in a similar state, blood painting her body as if it were a canvas. Where there wasn’t crimson, black tar had been slathered on and feathers crudely rested on her shaved head and body.

She had long passed the point of shame or embarrassment and they knew it, adding beatings and floggings to the mix. When they got bored of trying to break her body, they moved to breaking her spirit. 

Her gaze fell on the hooded executioner that stood behind the guard, his bearded axe a grim reminder of what awaited her. 

“Well? I give you the luxury to look outside your cell and instead you spend it gawking at Ser Rorick,” the little guard said, motioning her towards the window. 

She shuffled over to the far side of her cell and fit her head between the bars, weary that the guard would strike her from behind. She nearly wept at what she saw.

Paris bled. It had been wounded for some time, but the Terror that ran through the heart of the nation had squeezed it until it burst. She could stand here all night and not be able to count the dead bodies strewn about. A dozen or so hung from lampposts and hastily crafted gallows, facing the Bastille with their bodies limp.

“Beautiful sight, isn’t it?” the guard said, thankfully still across the other side of her cell. “Your little friends tried storming the place. Not for you, of course, don’t think you’re so special, whore. They’ve gone mad, just like you. Willing to throw their lives away for nothing at all.”

Paige didn’t respond, attention fixated on the war below as armed boys fought and ran and died. She wanted to cry out, to scream and plead that the violence stop but her voice wasn’t strong enough.

“Tonight is your last night, I’ll let you spend it with a view. Enjoy it while you still breathe,” the guard said. 

Paige pulled herself away from the scene to see the little man lock the cage behind him as he started to leave. The executioner remained where he was in the shaded corner of her cell and the ensuing seconds felt like hours as she waited for the guard to leave.

Finally, Paige heard the heavy door at the end of the hall close and she slumped to the floor. She drew her knees to her chest and let out a pained sigh. A flask landed at her feet..

“Something sweet, I hope,” she said.

Her executioner stepped out of the shadows and pulled back his hood, letting a mane of golden hair spill out. For someone so imposing and muscular, he had a youthful beauty that reminded Paige of those in her acting troupe rather than a headsman. He left his heavy axe against the wall and approached her to undo her bindings.

“I couldn’t find what you requested but the shopkeep said this was better,” Rorick said.

Hands free, she undid the clasp on the bottle and took a swig. Despite her best efforts, she winced.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be, it’s fine,’ Paige said.

“I’m sorry for all of this. This- none of this is right.”

“I killed a man, Rorick.”

“He killed himself.”

“From my actions. This is the price that has to be paid.”

The silence hung there while she took another drink, swallowing down the liquid and the words she wanted to say. She agreed with him that her life should be spared, that she should get to live out her days in the city she loves or in exile. She missed her friends and her family and knew she would never see them again. It wasn’t fair but to lead Rorick down that path would just lead to more death.

They had gotten to know each other in the week or so. Her torturer’s plans to have her reaper never leave her side had backfired. They didn’t expect her to befriend death so easily. Rorick was at the age where he carried the responsibility of adulthood and the courageousness of youth.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Rorick said, voice hardened. She couldn’t help smiling.

“No. No, it doesn’t,” she said. “Any word from Marquis?”

“He said he won’t be paying but sends you his *condolences*.”

“Of course,” Paige scoffed. “Marquis, the brilliant playwright and self-proclaimed champion of the women’s movement and he won’t even pay for me to get the guillotine.”

“Likely saving the coin to use it for himself, I’d imagine.”

Paige laughed at that, the sound loud enough she had forgotten she could reach such volumes. She took another drink to quiet the burning in her throat. Paige wondered if Marquis would give the money for her last performance to her family at least. Surely there was enough coin to be handed out given how much of a fuss her act had created. Marquis had used her to humiliate a political rival and that rival hadn’t been able to face the public ridicule. But it was Paige in the cage while Marquis flew freely.

“Is there anything else I can help you with tonight,” Rorick said. 

For a moment, Paige thought he was coming onto her and she stifled another laugh. Maybe it was the delirium as pain and alcohol took hold in her head. He would be the last person she had a conversation with, Paige thought. The man who would behead her would be her last friend.

“A promise, Rorick. I would like a promise.”

“My father told me to never accept promises that can’t be kept. What is it?”

“This one must be kept. I need you to be strong tomorrow.”

He straightened up a bit and nodded.

“I’ve had trouble sleeping the past few days, night terrors forcing me awake. Every night it is the same nightmare, my head on the block and the axe coming down. Surely you know the dreadful story of what happened to the Queen of Scots?”

“Three strikes until the deed was done.”

“I’ve dreamt of that every night since my arrest, Rorick. The axe hacking away over and over and over until there is nothing left to hack. Promise me you’ll be strong and careful, I have no coin to give you, but please promise me that so that I may sleep without worry.”

“You have my word, Paige.”

“Good.”

She expected to feel some sort of relief or resolve after hearing that but the feeling still nagged at her. Paige was going to die tomorrow, her head displayed for all of France to see as a symbol of what happens to those who love their country. At least the city would come together for her death, she mused as exhaustion brought her to a slumber.


	21. Aiden and Princess Dinah

Knots weren’t exactly Aiden’s strong suit. Despite being born beside the sea, he couldn’t get the hang of ropes and sails like his many brothers and sisters. Regardless, he managed to secure the bag of sweets to his raven’s back, careful not to overburden it. After testing its flight a few times, Aiden sent it forward.

Aiden felt his raven ascend through the forest, the wind ruffling each feather as if it was his own skin. His raven took a familiar route through the trees and branches careful to stay out of the guard’s blindspots. 

He had stumbled onto the tower a little over a month ago, the cobblestone structure nearly missed in the forest’s treeline. It was an ugly thing, the top flat rather than twisting into a spire like the ones in his kingdom, but he had made the journey out here every day since then.

His raven reached the top and perched itself at the open window, Aiden didn’t look inside quite yet and had the raven squawk. He waited, a small bit of fear creeping in as he looked through his own eyes instead. He sat under a tree hundreds of meters away, the forest so quiet that he could hear his own heart beating.

“Hello, little bird,” a voice whispered. “You may look.”

Princess Alcott was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was inches from his raven and Aiden could feel his pulse quicken. A soft smile rested between rosy cheeks and her eyes were such a gorgeous shade of blue that the sky would be jealous. Straight, dark hair obscured his bird’s view as she undid the bag of cookies and tarts.

He wanted nothing more than to answer her voice with his own, to see her through his own eyes. Every day since spotting her at the top of the tower, he came out to see her, sending company and what he could afford at the bakery to her window. In exchange, she would tell him stories.

She was a princess in a faraway kingdom he hadn’t yet heard of, the next in line to become an Oracle like her mother and her mother before. But despite the wealth and fame that came from such a title, she had only dreams of becoming a seamstress and making elegant, colorful gowns.

His mother a weaver, Aiden believed it to be a rather noble profession. Her parents, however, did not. The king and queen had her locked away in this tower, choosing to let the public think she were kidnapped rather than see her be among peasants and commonfolk. They would send a lord out once a month to see if she had changed her mind. She hadn’t.

Instead, the princess toiled away in the tower and spun whatever material she could get her hands on into dresses. She had shown him many over the weeks and today she wore his favorite, beautiful patterned gold covering her torso and arms.  
“Thank you, little bird,” Princess Alcott whispered, voice tickling feathers. She had finished a lemon tart and wiped away the crumbs with the square of cloth he had put in the bag for her. “The treats were splendid. But today I must ask of you a favor.”

He had his raven nod and hoped she would understand the jerky motion it did instead.

“Today is the day Lord Calvin leaves to get food for the month and he left just a few moments ago. I need you to rescue me from this tower while he is away.”

Aiden gulped, praying his raven didn’t do the same. Rescue? He may have trained often with his raven but Aiden was still the smallest in his village.

“I know it must be daunting but I believe in you, little bird.”

He felt a sense of resolve at hearing that and it felt like his blood got thicker and hotter as it coursed through his body.

“It will not be easy and it is asking a lot of you, this I know,” Princess Alcott said. “But with my guidance, you can do this.”

His raven nodded and she smiled.

Aiden crept down the hallway, steps light against the smooth stone. He had climbed a fair bit to get inside the tower, but the doors inside were much more resilient than open windows. It didn’t take long to find the locked door he assumed led up to her chambers, but the heavy lock meant there was more work ahead. He tried to keep an ear out for guards as he traced his steps to search for a key, but his ears were glued elsewhere.

“Take a left,’ Princess Alcott whispered. Just as he had done when she told him where the footholds were to climb the tower, he listened to her instructions. He was unsure just how she knew where he was but he didn’t ask questions, sneaking into what must’ve been a mess hall.

“Get down!” she said, voice shrill. Aiden hit the deck and slid under a bench as quickly as he could. He held his breath as a guard walked past his hiding spot and towards the kitchen. The coast temporarily cleared, Aiden exhaled.

“Sorry, I should’ve said it before you walked in. I’m not good at the small stuff,” Princess Alcott said.

“It’s okay,” he said before feeling silly that no one could hear it. Aiden pretended it was for his own benefit to shake off the embarrassment.

He peeked in on the princess and saw her rubbing her temples, a less than reassuring image after nearly getting caught.

“This is where things get tough, little bird,” she said. “The key to my chambers is on the guard in that room.”

Aiden ventured a look, and saw that the guard was double, no, *triple* his size.Aiden could see a metal ring on the guard’s hip before he ducked back down under the table. He waited until he saw the guard sit down at a table on the other side of the room before calling on his raven. 

It was risky, going blind from Princess Alcott’s instructions, but he commanded his raven to nosedive. Aiden rapidly switching between his own eyesight and his raven’s..

The sky fell, all hell breaking loose as the raven flew in through the open window. For a moment, he saw himself through his raven’s eyes and was surprised by whatt he saw. Confidence.

“What the- this bird’s gone mad!” the guard shouted.

He scrambled forward, fingers grabbing stone to crawl forward like an animal. Sliding under tables and benches, he reached the key ring in a few seconds. He lifted and had his raven bury talons into the guard’s shoulders at the same moment.The key ring came free and he booked it, making sure his raven was still clawing away to cover his exit.

Once he fled out of the doorway, his raven dashed back out the window. He could hear the guard swearing as he made his way down the hallway. Aiden worried the guard would give chase but he heard no footsteps other than his own as he sprinted to the heavy door that led to Princess Alcott.

The fourth key did the trick and his mind raced climbing up the spiral stairwell. He thought the adrenaline would be wearing off right now but he still felt his blood pumping. 

He was going to see her, he realized.

What would he even say? He cleared his throat, just in case words came fumbling out. Her face still ran fresh in his memory and he nearly tripped in his haste to reach her. Finally, he reached an ornate door and fumbled with the keys, hesitating when the right one found purchase. He turned the knob and daylight blinded from the window he watched her from for so weeks crept in.

“Princess Alcott, I’ve-”

He was embraced immediately, a warm body wrapping itself around him so tightly he nearly fell backwards.

“You can call me Dinah,” she said, her voice reaching his actual ears for the first time. “I’ve pictured this moment so many times.”

*Me too*, he thought, unaware if she heard it. She pulled off of him and he saw her with his own eyes. She was about his height and had a large bag slung over one shoulder. Aiden wanted to say so much and his breath hitched.

“For months, I’ve seen your face in my doorway, little bird” she continued. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“I- you’re welcome,” he said, glad his voice didn’t break.

She grabbed his hand, her fingers interlocking with his own.

“There’s no time for rest now, we must go before Lord Calvin returns.”

He only nodded and she leaned forward and placed her lips on his cheek. Aiden felt his face flush and she pulled him along, leading him out of her chambers and back down the stairwell. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the heavy lifting,” she said.


	22. Lustrum vs. Ingenue

Cherry Hill was the closest thing on the Cage to a red-light district, and not just because the neon signs made the streets glint like rubies. Although many tried, none of the other boroughs quite captured the feeling that came from walking uphill with the rest of the Cage at your back. Maybe it was because it was the highest point on the island, where you could best make out the skyline of the City that abandoned them across the water. Or maybe it was because Cherry Hill couldn’t flood, heavy rain only washing the sin out and down into the rest of the Cage. 

Of course, most of those who spent their nights on Cherry Hill didn’t need to think too hard on why they made the trip.

“Business before pleasure, ladies,” Lustrum told her crew.

“And what if business is our pleasure?” Bloodplay said, taking a long look at a woman in little more than a bubblegum bomber jacket as we passed a nightclub.

There were some whoops in agreement from the rowdier members of Lustrum’s group. She’d brought a dozen girls with her tonight and most were the troublesome sort, beaten and broken to the point they only found comfort in the violent fringes of what Lustrum taught. 

She’d tried corralling the violence in the past, back before the City blew out the bridges and left the Cage to rot. Now, she let them have their fill. After all, who was she to deny a woman what they wanted after the world broke them down like trash and disposed of them as worse.

“Then you won’t have to wait long,” Lustrum said, stopping in front of the Deviled Pig. “But remember what we’re here for.”

“Of course, Choke’s first kill,” Bloodplay said, tousling the golden hair on the head of the gang’s newest member.

“If she chooses,” Lustrum reminded her.

Chokepoint smacked Bloodplay’s hand away and set upon fixing her hair, sweeping the straight strands back over her head so the shaved side was exposed. She was cute, lacking in tattoos or cybernetics but already with a torso riddled in scars and stitches. To say they were here for justice would be like saying the men were crammed inside for conversation. 

“It’s your show,” Lustrum told her, the rest of the group huddling up outside the strip club. “We’re here to back you up, ready?”

“Ready,” she said with a squeaky voice.

A few of the girls gave her some squeezes on the arm in support, others a bit more vocal. The scarlet glow from the club’s obnoxious neon sign of a busty pig in fishnet stockings covered them as they made their way inside.

A bouncer at the entrance shouted something Lustrum didn’t care to register and she flexed. The syringes rigged in her jacket sleeve plunged through skin and into the very bone. It reshaped her arm from the inside out, filling her with flowing energy just as heavy as it was bright. Her arm doubled and then tripled in size, hard light shredding her jacket until his throat was between her fingertips. 

She could snuff him out like a candle for daring to stop her, for believing what he had to say was worth anything at all. It would take nothing more than a pinch, if that. And even that was too much attention he deserved. His body crumpled to the floor, spared and still wasting breath by wheezing. One of the others spat on him as we made our way past velvet curtains and into the open floor. 

Shitty music and strobe lights assaulted Lustrum’s senses. Everyone’s attention was on center stage and for good reason. A woman with latex boots that climbed all the way up to her thighs and a metallic torso adorned with body paint hung upside-down from a pole, leaning out so her head hung over the crowd for men to shove bills in her mouth and coins into the slots in her chest. A few of Lustrum’s group gawked and she let them, Chokepoint leading her and a few of the others into the private rooms.

“Should be the last one,” Chokepoint whispered, leading us deeper inside. “He always chose the one closest to the dressing room.”

Lustrum only nodded, lumbering down the hallway with the added weight from her hard light arm. Chokepoint moved with a confidence that was a stark contrast to the shivering girl Lustrum found bloodied in an alley nearly a month ago. They reached the curtain and Lustrum ordered Bloodplay and the others to stay outside as they stepped inside. 

Lustrum immediately put herself between Chokepoint and the woman who stood over the bed, the man they were after propped up against its headboard. She’d imagined hundreds of ways tonight could’ve gone. This wasn’t one.

“I told you,” Ingenue said, quickly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and fixing her facemask before turning around. “I don’t want to be distur- oh, and what have we here?”

She wore nothing but the facemask secured tightly around her ears, a design of bitten lips drawn where her mouth would be. Her hair was long, flowing down well past her shoulders and Lustrum could make out where the shimmer of light caught the metal hidden inside.

“What are you doing here, Ingenue?” Lustrum asked.

“Enjoying my Friday night,” she said. “You?”

“I’ll ask again.”

The man hadn’t so much as flinched, a smile on his face and empty eyes. Ingenue scoffed, putting her hands on her hips and shifting her weight so that she blocked him.

“That’s quite rude you know,” she said. “Waltzing in here and interrogating me.”

“What did you do to him?”

“Again with the questions,” Ingenue said, rolling her eyes. She ran her fingers through her hair and produced a small, metal tube. “A simple poison, he owed me.”

“He’s dead?” Chokepoint asked, piping up from behind Lustrum’s hard light arm.

“And just who is this?” Ingenue asked, perking up and standing on her tiptoes to try and see over Lustrum.

“I’m Chokepoint,” she said. “The man, did-did you kill him?”

“I never kill, hon,” Ingenue said. “I only give people what they want, what they do after that is out of my hands.”

“And what did he want?” Lustrum asked, stepping closer to Ingenue, arm down to her side. 

Ingenue smiled, cheeks making her eyes small.

“What all men want,” she said. “You of all people should know that more than anyone Lustrum. Even little Chokepoint knows.”

“I do?,” Chokepoint asked.

“You do,” Ingenue said. She used a nail to trace on her bare stomach. “Men want power, in one form or the other. Your friend there likes to cut up girls. Make them bleed, make them hurt. His friends like to do worse.”

She undid her mask, letting it hang from her ear. Lustrum turned away. Not in disgust, but in respect that it wasn’t shown for her sake, but for Chokepoint’s. She’d heard enough of the stories that she didn’t need to see it with her own eyes.

“I gave him all the power he could ever ask for. More than he could ever handle, just like he wanted. He’s sleeping now, but every inch of him will be a living bomb. Once it goes off, he will be dust in the wind, a cloud of smoke that burns all it touches until nothing is left at all.”

“You’re going after Moss,” Lustrum said, eyes wide and staring at the carpet.

“No. He is,” Ingenue said. “Or at least he will once he wakes up in an hour or so.”

“I can’t let you,” Lustrum said. “I made a promise to Choke, he’s ours.”

“Hm.”

That sound hung in the room, tense. Would Ingenue fight them if it came down to it? Was that a fight they could even manage? All she needed was a touch.

“Chokepoint, I like you,” Ingenue said. “Thoughts on my plan?”

Lustrum looked up in horror, Ingenue’s mask back on. She would’ve preferred the fight.

“Choke, what she’s planning… nobody deserves that.”

“And you didn’t deserve what you got either, sweetie,” Ingenue said. “Is this what he deserves? To die in his sleep with a big smile and a wet cock?”

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Lustrum said. 

“Doesn’t it!” Ingenue shouted, the metallic strain from raising her voice heard. She cleared her throat, parts behind the mask shifting around. “They take, and they take, and they take. You give them everything, everything! And they still find ways to take until nothing’s left.”

Lustrum swallowed her words. She wouldn’t argue, not about this. That ship had sailed a long time ago and she could only do her best to steer it in the right direction now. There were other ways forward than violence and trying to one up each until blows couldn’t be matched. Lustrum could only hope that Chokepoint would make the right choice.

She didn’t.


	23. Dinah and Bakuda

Ellen came for the snacks. It was a simple truth, the kind that made it easy to drag herself to this poor excuse for a library. There were other reasons she put herself through this torture of silence and servitude, but the longer she dwelled on those, the harder it was for her to make the drive each afternoon. Instead, she grabbed another handful of goldfish crackers.

“You’re supposed to be helping me, not stuffing your face,” Dinah said.

“And you’re not supposed to suck at this,” Ellen said.

Already leaning as far back in her chair as gravity allowed, Ellen carefully reached forward to snag one of the worksheets Dinah was working on.

“If you’re going to erase something, don’t half-ass it,” Ellen said, looking at the smudged page with disgust.

One of the other tutors with an almost impossibly bad haircut gave her a look. She rocked her chair forward, making sure the legs smacked hard against the floor to get his attention. 

“Here,” she said, grabbing one of Dinah’s pencils from the neat row the girl arranged. “Let me clean up this shit.”

The audible gasp from the other tutor after she stressed the last word made her cackle. That energy bled over into her erasing until the paper was covered in pink filings.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Dinah said.

“Oh please, I heard a lot worse when I was your age.”

Dinah put her pencil down and looked up at Ellen with stern eyes.

“I mean you shouldn’t do things just to mess with people,” Dinah said. “It’s not nice.”

Dinah was the fourth tween Ellen had been forced to tutor as part of her community service. The first was a crybaby, the second was an idiot, and the third was such a combination of the two that the overlapping part on that Venn diagram could’ve been its own circle. 

Dinah wasn’t a prodigy like Ellen had been, but she did have a backbone that Ellen appreciated. Mostly because it meant she wouldn’t have to go through yet another talk with the bag of bones running the after school program, when she hurt some kid’s feelings

“Do you think I care about being nice to some high school schmuck trying to pad his college applications just so he can get rejected by his first choice and settle for a crowded public university?”

“I don’t think you care about anything,” Dinah said. “But you should still be nice.”

Ellen groaned. She cared about a lot. Trying to explain algebra to children with four brain cells that occasionally smacked together just wasn’t one of those things. Although, to be fair, Dinah didn’t need much explaining when it came to math and probably didn’t even need a tutor. In fact, the only issue Dinah had ever shown in the past two weeks was taking the title of long division way too seriously. Ellen thought the girl was going to have an aneurysm when she told her she could just round to the second decimal place instead of solving for the entire number. If she asked for help, she probably needed it. 

“Whatever,” Ellen said. She scooted her chair in until her belly button was against the table. “What’s tripping you up?”

Dinah pointed at her worksheet, polished fingernail targeting a paragraph that took up nearly a quarter of the page.

“I don’t get how I’m supposed to do this. The test will have a calculator but…”

Ellen put her finger on the page and made a wide circle with it, the paper rotating so it faced her. 

“Maria has a job at a car dealership where she makes seventeen dollars an hour and ten percent of every sale. She is saving up for six new pairs of tennis shoes that cost ninety dollars each... if she makes twelve sales… sales tax of five percent… part-time job… severance pay… lemonade stand…” Bakuda mumbled, skimming the passage.

“Oh, it’s a lotto question,” Ellen said, turning the paper back around.

“I read that question like five times,,” Dinah said, leaning over the paper and rereading. “It mentions Maria’s husband’s gambling problem, but nothing about how much she spends on lottery tickets.”

“No, that’s just what I call those types of questions.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Ellen let that hang there, savoring the sour look on Dinah’s face before explaining.

“I can teach you how to do that problem, but it would probably take up most of the session.”

“Then do it,” Dinah said, crossing her arms. There was that lovable backbone again.

“No.”

“Why not!” 

A few heads turned our way from the outburst and Dinah shrunk down in her seat.

“Because questions like these are a waste of time,” Ellen said. “It’s long, drawn out, and maybe even intentionally so. You’re not supposed to solve it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Dinah said. “If it gets put on the test, then it’s supposed to be solved.”

“Believe me, I know how frustrating it can be to leave something unanswered. It itches at your brain and not being able to scratch just makes it itch worse.”

Dinah nodded, eyes wide as if for the very first time Ellen was speaking the same language as her. 

“But questions like those are out to get people like us and make us pay for wanting to problem solve. Skip it, focus on the easier ones and if there’s time then come back to it. If your brain won’t let you move forward with a blank space there, then fill it with something. Anything. What’s your favorite number?”

“One hundred.”

Bakuda took a pencil and drew a straight line followed by two ovals underneath the question, blaming shoddy line work on the fact she was writing the number upside-down.

“There’s your answer.”

“But that’s not right.”

“Probably not, but it could be. A lottery ticket”

“But it’s not.”

“Lottery. Ticket. I know it’s probably not right. There are millions upon millions of numbers in the world and you can only choose one,” Ellen said. “The odds aren’t great, but there’s a itsy bitsy, teeny tiny chance that you’re right. Lean on that chance.”

“I don’t know if I can just leave an answer up to a guess.” Dinah said, eyes focused on the question.

“It’s just a reason to move forward,” Ellen said, grabbing another handful of goldfish. She placed one on the paper and slid it down to the next question, a simple algebraic equation she’d absently watched Dinah do dozens of times. 

“Fine, but I’d still like to know how to solve it.”

She wouldn’t admit it because it’d undermine her whole point, but the words were music to Ellen’s ears. Ever since she laid eyes on that convoluted question, her mind was racing to figure out just how many of those damn shoes Maria could buy.

“Finish the rest of your worksheets and we’ll go through it if there’s time left.”

Dinah returned to the sheet with a smile, rushing through the work. Not that Ellen would have to check her work or anything, her calculations were usually flawless. Ellen popped a goldfish in her mouth, leaning back in her chair until she reached a point of weightlessness. She watched Dinah work, a smile she couldn’t shake on her face. 

Snacks and Dinah. Ellen came for snacks and Dinah, she admitted, knowing it’d be that much easier to come tomorrow.


	24. String Theory and Bakuda

Darkness grabbed her by the throat and swallowed her whole, manic screams and laughter choking into gasps until there was no sound left to give. She sunk like a pen in an inkwell, never comin back up for air. 

*This is the end*, Olivia thought. She’d sent the Golden Man to the moon and he’d found his way back, repaying the favor. Now she was dying, drowning in the ocean beneath the oil rig. Unless she was already dead, condemned to sink for eternity. It was a fitting end in a way. Dramatic, at least. Reaching the pinnacle of what triumph had to offer and then plummeting forever.

From the inky darkness came a light. No, a lighter darkness, shaded in grays rather than blacks. Her first thought was a Kraken and from that kernel alone her mind birthed ideas. 37 days. It was more than a deadline, bigger than a promise. It was almost a threat. 37 days to create a monster that’d rival an Endbringer in size and violence. Not that’d she’d ever get to follow through on this one. Which wasn’t exactly new for her, she’d had to abandon many plans after being tossed in the Birdcage.

The lighter darkness swelled and pulled at her. Its force wasn’t tangible in the ways the gravity that made her sink was, but it was heavy and insurmountable all the same. It latched onto her and tugged at her soul. Her plans on tinkering faded into memories of her older brother pulling her into a hug when he came home from university. Her mother handing over a cookie on Christmas Eve that was still too hot to eat. There were more as the shade dug deeper and embraced her closer. 

Homecomings, Olivia realized. Warm moments with family and loved ones. Coming together and rejoining the whole. She welcomed it as the shade engulfed her, stealing her away from the darkness and taking her elsewhere like a current in the ocean. 

There were others, joining the current with forms like shadows, features scrubbed into nothingness. If the same was happening to her, she couldn’t feel it. The ink thinned around her until it was like swimming through air. The current moved with a purpose to it, a volition that wasn’t hers guiding the other shadows away.

Olivia coughed up saltwater and swear words in the middle of a classroom, water spilling out on wood floors and wet hair sticking to her face. Her chest heaved, trying its best to wrangle breath for herself.

“Oh?” a woman’s voice said over her hacking. There was a lisp or an accent buried in her words. “I thought you were one of the smart ones.”

The voice was new, but the tone was familiar. A special kind of condescension built from a truth rather than a lie. Olivia did what she always did when faced with adversity. She put on a brave face, the widest shit-eating grin she could manage given the circumstances.

“Me too,” she said.

Wiping hair out of her eyes, she noticed she was wearing her glasses. The closest thing she’d ever had to a mask. The woman at the front of the classroom was as dry as could be, hair drawn back in a stylized ponytail and feet propped up on a desk.

“You’re far from an angel,” Olivia said, standing up and fixing her lab coat.

The woman snorted.

“As if they’d let you through the pearly gates,” she said. There was a hiss to her last word, more like a machine than a reptile but a hiss nonetheless.

Olivia laughed, coughing up the rest of the ocean settled in her lungs. The classroom wasn’t one she recognized, with an unlit ceiling that stretched high above her and empty desks and chairs placed in neat rows. It reminded her more of a television set than anything, something crafted to look realistic enough as a background for an audience, but not truly lived in.

“I never put too much thought into where I would end up, when it was all said and done.”

The woman’s expression soured and Olivia couldn’t place why. She was never good with people, not even in a tinker capacity. The meat and blood wasn’t her forte, the deadlines always longer when tasked with creating life or altering it in some way beyond deletion. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, she could do anything she set her mind to, she was simply better at playing to her strengths. She’d done it up to the far-from-bitter end.

“Maybe that’s why we ended up here,” the woman said, finger tapping against the desk but not making any noise. “Reaching for the sun and burning up.”

“I was never a big fan of that,” Olivia said, pacing around the classroom, hand swiping dust off a desk. “The fables, the legends, the lessons to be learned. I wanted to learn from myself, not from some idiots with feathers and wax thousands of years ago.”

The woman smiled, staring up at the ceiling.

“They always bring up getting too close to the sun, but no one seems to criticize getting too close to the sea and having their wings clog up,” she said.

“We all drown, in the end,” Olivia said.

“All that matters is how hard we hit the water once we do,” the woman hissed.

“The impact,” Olivia said.

The other woman nodded and there was silence for a while. Olivia had a pretty good idea where she was, she wasn’t stupid. Her time in the Birdcage had steeled her for this outcome. It was inevitable that she ended up here. She was too smart. Too useful.

“How long have you been here?” Olivia asked.

“You don’t know me, do you?”

“Not in the slightest,” Olivia said.

“We met, once,” the woman said. “I fixed a television in your cell block. You’d stripped it down for some project or another and the women complained. You only took notice when they sang my praises for helping.”

“The bombs,” Olivia remembered. “It took me a month to get what you planted out of the televisions.”

“It should’ve taken at least two months just to find them, let alone disarm them in time.”

“I don’t choose how long it takes.”

“Did any go off at least? I died before I could see the fireworks.”

“Not one.”

The woman groaned, chair back on all fours now.

“The women in your block were so annoying. Doting over others instead of helping themselves. I wanted to at least wipe some of them out while they were watching their idiotic shows.”

“I reused the bombs, if it makes you feel any better,” Olivia said.

“It doesn’t.”

“Shame, it was good work.”

For a split second, the bomb woman smiled, forcing it into a smirk.

“Death’s made you soft,” she said.

“If all this afterlife has to offer is small talk and a dusty room, then I might as well make the most of it,” Olivia said, leaning against a wall.

“There’s more to this than that,” the woman said. “We still have purpose. We still have use.”

“As tools. Pets,” Olivia countered.

“As weapons,” the woman said.

Her words hung there. Was it something she convinced herself of? A way to justify this existence as a fragment of who she once was, solely used as the Fairy Queen’s plaything? It was easier for the actress to follow her script if she believed the words on the page. Olivia had gone out the way she always dreamed of, with a big bang that couldn’t be forgotten. Now was the time to rest, to relish in the full life she lived. And yet...

“You’re restless,” Olivia said. “I get it.”

“You don’t *get* anything.”

“I get this. Probably better than the other tinkers she’s sent your way. You can’t rest, you don’t want to. I get it.”

She turned away. Olivia was bad with people.She’d scared away her family precisely 17 days and 19 hours after receiving her powers. She’d killed hundreds with the press of a button, simply to fuel a bidding war for a pet project. But Olivia was good when it came to one thing about people. 

“It’s admirable,” she said. The woman met her eyes. “Not wanting . You push, and push, and push until you blow past whatever tried stopping you. Even after death, it’s hard to just stop.”

“I can’t give up. Not when I can still act,” the woman said. “This isn’t the end of the line, this isn’t the end of anything. It’s not the afterlife. Nothing’s over. I still have use. Nothing you say will change that.”

Olivia smiled and adjusted her glasses.

“Then I won’t waste my breath,” Olivia said.

She’d lived her life following deadlines. Things started and then they ended. It was simple. Olivia’s end came. This woman with the ponytail and hungry didn't reach her end. Not yet. 

“I’m Olivia.”

“Bakuda.”


	25. Anything?

"I'd do anything to go back home to Aleph," Sundancer mumbled to herself.

"Anything?" Glory Girl's voice rang out from above as she swooped in.

***

Victoria groaned, the sound guttural and deep enough that it drowned out everything else in her bedroom. “Put your hips into it.”

“I’m trying,” Marissa whined. She was already getting a bit tired, sweat making blonde hair stick to her face.

“I find that hard to believe,” Victoria said, a critical look on her face.

“I feel stupid,” Marissa said, letting her arms fall down to her sides. She stopped swaying her hips and straightened her skirt so the hem tickled her thigh. 

Victoria turned off the music but Marissa could still make out the red light blinking on the camera.

"You said you were a dancer,” Victoria said, not hiding the frustration in her tone. “This should be like second nature to you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not. I don’t even understand what they’re saying in the song,” Marissa said.   
  
“No one does, it doesn’t matter. Ready to try again?” Victoria asked, already leaning over to check the camera on the tripod and ensure Marissa was centered.   
  
“Not really,” Marissa said. “Are you sure this will get me back to Aleph?”   
  
“Of course,” Victoria said. “I made a similar video a while back to some Aleph song and pretty much all of my social media accounts were flooded with people wanting me to come over there. This will definitely work.”   
  
“Okay…” Marissa said, still a bit unconvinced. She’d done crazier things, although this definitely ranked up there. It probably wouldn’t have been as weird if she was in her own costume instead of Victoria’s, a white domino mask as the only thing concealing her identity. The skirt was apparently necessary, but she was 99% sure that the thigh high socks strangling her legs weren’t. 

“Okay, we’ll skip ahead since you pretty much know the routine by now,” Victoria said, fiddling with her phone to work the music. It started and Marissa smiled like she would for any performance, lightly bouncing in place. The song was annoyingly catchy and she hoped this didn’t awaken anything in her.

After a few seconds, music and her pace picked up and she winked before throwing her hands behind when the beat stopped. Her hips swayed and body twisted as if the intent was to make the hem of her skirt reach her armpits. If this didn’t work and she was making a fool of herself for nothing then she was going to be pissed.


End file.
